Arkansas Marijuana Initiative Gathers More Signatures

The Arkansas Alliance for Medical Marijuana has gathered 30,000 more signatures in its bid to get a medical-marijuana measure on the Nov. 2 ballot, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Aug. 26.

Secretary of State Charlie Daniels previously had rejected the measure because there was an error in the notary public's signature on the petition pages. The alliance was given 30 additional days to submit more names.

"We were able to locate key notaries to correct some of the problems among that first rejected group of 17,371," said Denele Campbell, executive director of the alliance. "We feel that batch will yield an additional 10,000 valid names to our tally."

The initiative would allow residents with "debilitating medical conditions" to use marijuana on the advice of a physician. Under the measure, the patient or a caregiver would grow the marijuana.

Phyllis Thompson, a consultant for the Arkansas Alliance for Medical Marijuana, said she is "very confident" that the group has the 64,456 registered Arkansas voters' signatures needed to get the initiative on the ballot.

The measure is being opposed by Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana. Larry Page, director of the group, plans to run a grassroots campaign to "get out empirical information" against the measure.

Source: www.jointogether.org