“The thing that bothers me the most is they applied it retroactively, not prospectively. They upended 115 years of work by the people of the state of Arkansas on these initiatives.”
By Antoinette Grajeda, Arkansas Advocate
Emily Williams struggled to find medication that alleviated chemotherapy side effects like nausea and loss of appetite following her 2010 cancer diagnosis. Eventually, she tried marijuana and it provided relief.
“I was just grateful,” she said. “I just felt grateful.”
The experience prompted the Fayetteville retiree to advocate for a citizen-led constitutional amendment voters approved in 2016 to create Arkansas’ medical marijuana program.
That program has since grown into a billion-dollar industry, with more than 115,000 patients using marijuana to treat conditions from Crohn’s disease to post-traumatic stress disorder. But an obscure legal fight over who can change citizen-led amendments to Arkansas’ Constitution casts uncertainty on the program’s future.
The court ruling is part of a nationwide battle playing out in states like Missouri and Nebraska over citizen-led ballot measures. Arkansas is one of 24 states that allows citizens to propose state laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Since the state’s first dispensary opened in 2019, thousands of Arkansans have accessed
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