LITTLE ROCK — While an initiative to expand medical marijuana will appear on the Arkansas ballot this month, votes won’t be counted on the issue; the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled on the measure on Monday. The justices voted 4-3 against moving forward with counting votes on the issue — deciding that the measure didn't adequately explain what it would do and that the title was misleading.
The measure cannot be removed from the ballot and early voting was already underway when the court made the decision, but the court has ordered election officials not to count any votes cast on the issue.
A 2016 constitutional amendment legalized medical cannabis for Arkansans. Justices decided that the 2024 measure failed to inform voters that it would remove the ability of the state legislature to change that 2016 amendment. The court also said the measure did not inform voters that the new amendment would legalize up to an ounce of marijuana possession, for any purpose, if marijuana becomes legal under federal law.
The proposed state constitutional amendment could have broadened the definition of medical professionals who can certify patients for medical marijuana, expanded the qualifying conditions, and extended the time a medical cannabis card is valid to three years.
The first legal cannabis products were sold in the state in 2019. Since then, medical cannabis has grown into a billion dollar industry with 37 licensed dispensaries in Arkansas.
Justice Cody Hiland dissented on Monday, saying the court was ignoring decades-long precedent by ruling the measure's wording was misleading. "Long ago, this court established definitive standards for evaluating the sufficiency of popular names and ballot titles," said Hiland. "This court has not deviated from those standards until today."
Arkansans for Patient Access (APA), the group behind the ballot measure, said it would keep pushing to expand the medical marijuana program and that the signatures it gathered showed widespread support. "We are deeply disappointed in the Court's decision," the group said in a statement. "It seems politics has triumphed over legal precedent." More than 150,000 Arkansans from all 75 of the state’s counties signed petitions in support of the proposed measure, according to the APA statement.
Arkansas Supreme Court Associate Justice Shawn Womack said that the measure’s popular name, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024, is misleading because it does not inform voters that the amendment, if passed, would affect more than just medical marijuana. “The popular name indicates to voters that the proposed amendment only concerns marijuana for medical purposes, yet it seeks to legalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for all purposes if triggered by federal action,” Womack wrote.
Womack continued, “In the same vein, the popular name of the ballot title does not inform voters that they would be amending article 5, section 1 of the Arkansas Constitution — which is likewise wholly unrelated to medical marijuana.”
About half of US states allow recreational marijuana and a dozen more have legalized medical marijuana. This year, voters in Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana for adults, and two medical marijuana proposals will be on Nebraska's ballot.
