Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation, an agriculture advocacy organization, opposes an amendment that would expand access to medical marijuana. But their reasoning for it is hard to nail down.
On Monday, the organization launched a ballot question committee with the Arkansas Ethics Commission to oppose the Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024.
Two years ago, Arkansas Farm Bureau, which says it represents more than 190,000 member families in the state, formed a ballot question committee to oppose an amendment that would have legalized recreational marijuana. That committee raised $34,324 and spent the money on radio and newspaper ads.
Arkansas Farm Bureau’s paperwork with the Arkansas Ethics Commission did not include a reason for opposing the amendment that would open up medical marijuana to more people. Arkansas Farm Bureau spokesman Steve Eddington said the opposition is based on the group’s policy positions related to marijuana, although the policy positions don’t directly address the amendment.
The group updates its policies annually, usually around Thanksgiving, and doesn’t currently have anything on the books that specifically addresses an amendment currently on the table. That amendment would expand the types of medical professionals who could certify patients for the program to include nurse practitioners, physicians’ assistants and pharmacists. The amendment would also allow those medical professionals to certify patients based on any debilitating condition, not just the existing 18 qualifying conditions. Medical marijuana cards would last three years instead of one, and the $50 charge would be dropped. The amendment would eliminate a prohibition on dispensaries selling pre-rolled joints and would allow patients to grow some plants of their own.
“We don’t update policy until the following year, so there are times we don’t have policy that is specific to an amendment, but we have policy (that) is around that subject,” Eddington said via email.
Eddington provided several of the organization’s marijuana-related policy positions, but none of them referenced medical marijuana. The policies all target recreational marijuana, a type of legalization that opens cannabis up to legal use for all adults, without requiring a medical professional’s approval. That’s not what’s on offer in the proposed amendment for 2024, although it would legalize marijuana in the state if it is legalized federally.
Eddington said Arkansas Farm Bureau’s opposition was not necessarily related to the trigger provision, though.
Luke Niforatos, an executive vice president for national anti-marijuana group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, has said the word “medical” in medical marijuana is a “farce.”
I asked Eddington if Arkansas Farm Bureau fell into that camp, dismissing medical marijuana and placing all marijuana into the “recreational” category.
But that wasn’t the case, he said.
“The state of Arkansas views them as different, so our policy is written as the state sees them,” he said.
The only policy position Arkansas Farm Bureau provided that seemed to readily apply to this year’s medical marijuana amendment said that the organization opposes “any marijuana legalization for commercial motor vehicle license holders.”
When I asked if Arkansas Farm Bureau also believed medical marijuana cardholders should be barred from holding other types of driver’s licenses, he said the policy only extends to CDLs and not to infer any other meaning.
Arkansas Farm Bureau for a Safe and Healthy Arkansas, the ballot question committee formed this week, is the third group formed to oppose the medical marijuana expansion. Stronger Arkansas, another ballot question committee, was formed by several people with close ties to Gov. Sarah Sanders, including her campaign manager, Chris Caldwell.
Protect Arkansas Kids, another group opposed to the medical marijuana measure, was formed by Jim Bell of Little Rock and has the support of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.