#Arkansas medical marijuana

[follow-up-news]

Arkansas voters won’t get to weigh in on a ballot initiative to expand medical marijuana after the state Supreme Court ruled the measure didn’t fully explain what it would do, tossing out the initiative just two weeks before the election. It’s too late to remove the measure from the ballot — early voting began Monday — so the court has ordered election officials not to count any votes cast on it. The proposed constitutional amendment would have broadened the definition of medical professionals who can certify patients for medical cannabis, expanded qualifying conditions and made medical cannabis cards valid for three years. In Monday’s 4-3 decision, the justices ruled the measure did not fully inform voters that it would have stripped the Legislature’s ability to change the 2016 constitutional amendment that legalized medical marijuana in the state.

[floral-hex]

I just want to get blasted, either out of my mind or into the sun, I’m not picky

[cannabisbusinessexecutive]

Arkansas medical marijuana supporters sue state over decision measure won’t qualify for ballot

Organizers of an effort to expand medical marijuana i n Arkansas sued the state on Tuesday for its decision that the proposal won’t qualify for the November ballot. Arkansans for Patient Access asked the state Supreme Court to order Secretary of State John Thurston’s office to certify their proposal for the ballot. Thurston on Monday said the proposal did not qualify, ruling that its petitions…

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - 13 November

🦔 - Who knew Attenborough's echidna was just camera-shy?

1. New state law prevents animal abuse offenders from owning pets

The law bans those convicted of animal cruelty, including those involved with dogfighting, from owning any kind of animal for five years after their first criminal offense.

2. A door at a Swedish library was accidentally left open — 446 people came in, borrowed 245 books. Every single one was returned

The library was supposed to be closed for All Saints Day — a celebration sometimes also called All Hallows Day, the precursor of Halloween. But the library staff had forgotten to close a door. So people came in, thinking the library was open. Some visitors realized the library was technically closed and went home, but others did not.

3. Ohio votes to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use, becoming 24th state to do so

Ohio voters approved a measure legalizing recreational marijuana on Tuesday, defying Republican legislative leaders who had failed to pass the proposed law.

Passage of Issue 2 makes Ohio the 24th state to allow adult cannabis use for non-medical purposes.

4. First ever images prove 'lost echidna' not extinct

Scientists have filmed an ancient egg-laying mammal named after Sir David Attenborough for the first time, proving it isn't extinct as was feared.

An expedition to Indonesia led by Oxford University researchers recorded four three-second clips of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna. Spiky, furry and with a beak, echidnas have been called "living fossils".

They are thought to have emerged about 200 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

5. Dog leads family to missing cat that fell into 30-metre mineshaft

An incredibly lucky cat has his canine companion to thank for saving his life after the dog led rescuers to a 30 metre-deep mineshaft the cat fell into.

The cat, Mowgli, disappeared on Oct. 20 and had been missing for six days. Owner Michele Rose told the BBC that she had “almost given up hope” of finding her cat.

6. World’s first whole eye and partial face transplant gives Arkansas man new hope

A surgical team at NYU Langone Health in New York has performed the world’s first successful whole-eye transplant in a living person: Aaron James.

After an accident at work led to the loss of his left eye and part of his face, Aaron was given a new window to his soul, as well as a partial face transplant.

7. Obesity drug Wegovy cut risk of serious heart problems by 20%, study finds

The popular weight-loss drug Wegovy reduced the risk of serious heart problems by 20% in a large, international study that experts say could change the way doctors treat certain heart patients.

The research is the first to document that an obesity medication can not only pare pounds, but also safely prevent a heart attack, stroke or a heart-related death in people who already have heart disease — but not diabetes.

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That's it for this week :)

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[reality-rogue]

#weed #ganga #canabis #marijuana #joint #blunt #smoke #wakenbake #ptsd #medical #patient #arkansas #usa #thc-a #18+ #legal #smokeshop

[us-laws-you-should-know]

Marijuana Legality: The Quick(er) Version

A few days ago, I started writing a very long, very detailed post about marijuana legality state by state... and it got eaten by tumblr's drafts features.

This post is going to be the Cliff Notes version of that post.

First off, Wikipedia's Legality of cannabis by U.S. jurisdiction page is an excellent resource for this. It doesn't capture everything, but it captures a lot, and you can always go to linked pages for individual states and/or check the linked sources for more information.

The short(ish) version:

Under federal law, specifically the Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is a Schedule I drug and cannot be prescribed or possessed legally aside from a very tightly-controlled quota for scientific research purposes. This scheduling includes language stating that marijuana "has no currently accepted medical use" and "[t]here is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision", which is... arguable.

There is a process for changing drugs, including marijuana, to a less restrictive schedule under the Controlled Substances Act or removing them as a controlled substance altogether. But that process hasn't happened for marijuana so far.

Technically, this supersedes state and local law on the subject; state law can be more restrictive than federal law, but not less restrictive, or else the whole idea of federal law governing the whole country is moot. Theoretically, that means that federal police could arrest anyone, anywhere, for marijuana possession under the Controlled Substances Act, regardless of what local authorities say on the matter.

Realistically, that's highly unlikely. Any case where someone gets arrested for marijuana in a state that says it's okay is practically asking for a Supreme Court case on the matter, and said Supreme Court ruling would inevitable be controversial and divisive, and right now everybody's content to just... pretend the federal law doesn't exist when the state says otherwise. Probably some years down the line such a Supreme Court case will indeed happen and cause a shift to the current murky and unstable status quo, but it's highly unlikely that said Supreme Court case will star you, random marijuana user. (And if it does, well, upside is there's bound to be a bunch of folks willing to represent you for free just to get in on the action!)

Also, the federal police are busy, and hey, if they don't have to worry about marijuana use in a large chunk of the country, that just gives them more time to go after other kinds of federal criminals.

So, if state law's what matters, what do the states say?

Again, I point you to the Wikipedia page outlining exactly this. (It's most of what I'm using for a resource here myself.)

Recreational use of marijuana is legal in 24 states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington state), three U.S. territories (Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and U.S. Virgin Islands), and Washington D.C. Note that Ohio's measure here is newly passed and doesn't actually take effect until December 7, 2023, three days from now.

Commercial distribution is legal everywhere that recreational use is legal except Virginia and Washington D.C.

Personal cultivation for recreational use is legal everywhere that recreational use is legal except Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington state.

Recreational use is decriminalized in Hawaii, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and North Dakota.

Medicinal use of marijuana is legal in 38 states (the recreational use ones, plus Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia), four U.S. territories (the recreational use ones plus Puerto Rico), and Washington D.C.

Medicinal use is decriminalized in Nebraska and North Carolina.

Iowa gets a special shout-out here for allowing medicinal marijuana, but not allowing any actual distributors of said medicinal marijuana in the state; medicinal marijuana patients need to go out-of-state to get their marijuana supplies, but those supplies remain legal upon bringing them back to Iowa.

Personal cultivation for medicinal use is legal everywhere that recreational cultivation is legal plus Illinois, Washington state, Hawaii, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.

Marijuana remains illegal for both medicinal and recreational use in ten states: Georgia (though several cities/counties in Georgia have decriminalized it), Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, and also the territory of American Samoa. Everywhere but American Samoa has some exception for CBD oil, though, with limits on the percentage of THC present.

A number of Native American reservations have also legalized marijuana use, either recreational or medicinal.

Most of these laws have restrictions beyond just "it's legal". You might have to be 18 to purchase marijuana, or 19, or 21; there's generally a maximum amount you're allowed to possess, or grow, at one time; medicinal use might be restricted to specific symptoms or conditions outlined in the original law; details may vary about having it in a public place, or about the specific forms allowed.

Also, some laws specifically address potential effects of marijuana use within the state beyond simple criminality. Can marijuana use be considered in a child welfare case, and held against you as a parent? Can use of medicinal marijuana get you fired if you fail a drug test your employer gave you, or just because your employer doesn't like it? Does being fired for using marijuana count as being fired "for cause" for unemployment purposes? Can marijuana use disqualify you from accessing needed health care like organ transplants? Excellent questions! The answers will vary. Or they might not be specified in the original statute at all, which leaves it open for the courts to decide.

If you're going to purchase and/or consume marijuana, please, look up all the details of your local laws on the matter beforehand.

[bibliosauruswrecks]

I hate to continue to be a killjoy, but I still see people celebrating that Arkansans will get to vote for abortion rights this fall.

We won’t.

Why?

Because last week the State Supreme Court ruled Thurston was correct in rejecting the petition on a technicality.

Despite making similar errors, the other petitions for medical marijuana and casinos are, of course, going ahead as planned.

With no national support or attention, Arkansas women (and a few good men) did what everyone said couldn’t be done. On July 5, organizers turned in enough signatures to qualify an amendment to restore access to abortion in Arkansas.  The amendment will restore access up to 18 weeks for any reason and thereafter has exceptions for rape, incest, fatal fetal anomaly, and life and health of the mother.  The amendment had no support from national groups like Planned Parenthood or the ACLU because it didn’t allow for abortions up to the point of viability.  However, polling showed that anything over 18 weeks simply wouldn’t pass in deep red Arkansas, and the amendment will cover 99% of abortions that do occur.

Abortion rights will be on the ballot in Arkansas, thanks to a 100% unfunded volunteer effort! Amazingly good news.

[vegasgogreen]

New Study Finds States Most Obsessed with Medical Marijuana: #1-3 Mississippi, Arkansas, Alaska - OnFocus

http://dlvr.it/TCkTKS

[liminalweirdo]

@theygender 's tags are incredibly real

#im out as nonbinary even at work and with all my doctors (even tho im not medically transitioning)#but if youre a cop or my landlord then im cis#its the same reason i dont want to get my gender marker changed to an X even tho arkansas offers it and its (on paper) easy to change#the only people who would see my ID are cops landlords and employers#(and also people selling me alcohol/medical marijuana but like. idc)#and im not trying to get hatecrimed by a cop OR discriminated against in housing/hiring (my current employer is cool but not all are)#so yeah. i cant really hide that im queer but im at least gonna try to seem cis when interacting with a cop or signing a lease#and i dont see that changing any time soon

“Even at an individual level, there are remarkably few of even the most openly gay people who are not deliberately in the closet with someone personally or economically or institutionally important to them. Furthermore, the deadly elasticity of heterosexist presumption means that, like Wendy in Peter Pan, people find new walls springing up around them even as they drowse: every encounter with a new classful of students, to say nothing of a new boss, social worker, loan officer, landlord, doctor, erects new closets whose fraught and characteristic laws of optics and physics exact from at least gay people new surveys, new calculations, new draughts and requisitions of secrecy or disclosure. Even an out gay person deals daily with interlocutors about whom she doesn’t know whether they know or not; it is equally difficult to guess for any given interlocutor whether, if they did know, the knowledge would seem very important. Nor-at the most basic level-is it unaccountable that someone who wanted a job, custody or visiting rights, insurance, protection from violence, from “therapy,” from distorting stereotype, from insulting scrutiny, from simple insult, from forcible interpretation of their bodily product, could deliberately choose to remain in or to reenter the closet in some or all segments of their life. The gay closet is not a feature only of the lives of gay people.But for many gay people it is still the fundamental feature of social life; and there can be few gay people, however courageous and forthright by habit, however fortunate in the support of their immediate communities, in whose lives the closet is not still a shaping presence.“

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet

[cannabisbusinessexecutive]

Arkansas medical marijuana group continues signature drive despite legal challenges

Arkansans for Patient Access is gathering signatures in the River Valley and Northwest Arkansas to expand medical cannabis access despite legal challenges. Organizers with Arkansans for Patient Access are still gathering signatures here in the River Valley and Northwest Arkansas. They need 14,000 signatures by the end of the month and even though the Secretary of State says they did not comply…

[heresthedealok]

Here's The Deal Podcast - The Max Baker Jr. Story - Episode 114

Despite Jay Ramones attempt at Humor, those artists are not AI, those are real fans of the Here's The Deal Podcast. In this episode we catch up with Max & Jeff and talk about the road trips they've taken in the past month. Since July 4th, Max & Jeff travelled to Missouri and watched The Rolling Stones, get lost on the way back & end up in Arkansas. While at the show, they met some crazy Argentinians who became instant friends with Max! 

#MaxBakerJr #JeffBrownen #JayRamone #HeresTheDealPodcast #HeresTheDeal #OklahomaCity #Episode114 #podcast #youtube #medcardsmadeeasy #bakerboyspro #texas #July4th #roadtrip #missouri #therollingstones #arkansas #argentinians #fans

Visit The Here's The Deal Podcast Website - https://heresthedealok.com/

Buy Here’s the Deal Vintage & Collectables https://heresthedealvintagecollectables.com

Subscribe to The Here's The Deal YouTube Channel   https://www.youtube.com/@heresthedealok 

Get your Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Card  https://medcardsmadeeasy.net/

Concert & Event Production Services https://bakerboyspro.com/

[lboogie1906]

Vice Admiral Dr. Minnie Joycelyn Elders (born Minnie Lee Jones; August 13, 1933) the former US Surgeon General was born in Schaal, Arkansas to Curtis and Hailer Jones; she added the name Joycelyn when she was in college. As the eldest of eight children of sharecroppers, she experienced extreme poverty in segregated, rural Arkansas. She received a BS in Biology from Philander Smith and an MD from the University of Arkansas Medical School.

She enlisted in the Army and became a physical therapist. She returned home and protested against local segregation. She refused to park in the back of a drive-in theater. She completed her residency and became chief pediatric resident at the University of Arkansas Medical Center. She was named pediatric research fellow for a three-year term. She earned her second MS from the University of Arkansas. She served the University of Arkansas as an assistant, associate, and full professor. She published over 100 articles, primarily regarding juvenile diabetes. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton appointed her as the head of the state’s health department. She became the first female African American to be director of the Department of Health in Arkansas.

She increased Arkansas school clinics and expanded sex education. Largely due to her lobbying, the Arkansas State legislature “mandated a kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade course curriculum encompassing not only sex education, but hygiene instruction, and substance-abuse prevention.” The Arkansas teenage pregnancy rate fell below the national rate.

President Bill Clinton nominated her to the highest medical office in the land, the US Surgeon General. The Surgeon General holds the military rank of Vice Admiral in the United States Navy. Although personally against abortion, she publicly advocated pro-choice policies. She fought many conservatives in Congress and religious groups to expand sex education. She supported physicians who prescribed marijuana to patients. This stance, coupled with comments supporting masturbation, prompted President Clinton to demand her resignation. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #deltasigmatheta

[howlgrowlsnarl]

Arkansas Has Far More Medical Marijuana Patients Than Expected When Legalization Passed, Official Says

“The fears that people expressed when this first passed in 2016 have not come to bear.” By Mary Hennigan, Arkansas Advocate Since the launch of medical marijuana in Arkansas in 2019, more than three dozen storefronts have opened, at least 102,000 residents have registered for patient cards and revenue has topped $1.1 billion. The industry…Arkansas Has Far More Medical Marijuana Patients Than…

[cavenewstimes]

Arkansas Medical Cannabis Sales Tax Funds School Lunches for Kids

Read More The Latest Marijuana News Today | HighTimes Magazine  The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission (AMMC) recently announced the benefits that the state’s medical cannabis program, with millions of dollars in cannabis tax funds helping to provide lunches for kids at school. While the state has collected $115 million from cannabis taxes, $87 million went toward free or low-cost lunches for…