LITTLE ROCK — Supporters of an initiative that would legalize marijuana use for medical purposes submitted more than 67,000 signatures on petitions to the secretary of state’s office Thursday.
Representatives of four other groups wanting to get their proposed initiatives or constitutional amendments on the Nov. 6 general election ballot said Thursday that plan to turn in their signatures by Friday’s 5 p.m. deadline.
“We’ve waited a long time for this day,” Melissa Fults, treasurer for Arkansans for Compassionate Care, said as she signed the necessary paperwork at the secretary of state’s office about 3:45 p.m. Thursday.
Alex Reed, spokesman for Secretary of State Mark Martin, said the office has 30 days to verify the signatures, and if Arkansans for Compassionate Care or any of the other groups that turn in signatures, come up short of the signatures needed to qualify for the general election ballot — 62,507 for an initiated act and 78,133 for a constitutional amendment — the group will have 30 days to make up the difference.
Fults, who started crying while leaving the secretary of state’s office, said she was emotional because she and others have worked for months trying to gather the necessary signatures.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
She said the proposal would benefit her son, who was injured in a car wreck as a teenager and has spent about 12 years on a variety of pain killers, which have caused numerous other health problems.
She said marijuana for medicinal purposes has been proven to help relieve chronic pain and it is legal in a number of states.
The proposal would allow up to 30 medical marijuana dispensaries in the state, and cities and counties could choose to ban them. The marijuana would only be available to people with a prescription for certain health conditions, including chronic pain, glaucoma, Hepatitis C and those who are terminally ill.
Representatives of four other groups working to get their proposals on the ballot said Thursday they plan to turn in their signatures Friday.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Brent Bumpers, co-chairman of the Better Ethics Now Committee, which along with the group Regnat Populus 2012 are gathering signatures to get an ethics reform proposal on the ballot.
The Campaign Finance and Lobbying Reform Act of 2012, an initiative, would ban lobbyists’ gifts to legislators, make former lawmakers wait two years after leaving office before becoming lobbyists and ban direct corporate and union contributions to candidates for public office.
Former gas company executive Sheffield Nelson said he plans to submit Friday more than 70,000 signatures for an initiated act to raise the state severance tax on natural gas from 5 percent to 7 percent and eliminate exemptions to the current rate.
Supporters of two proposed constitutional amendments that would allow casinos in Arkansas also said they planned to submit their signatures Friday.
One of those proposals, by Michael Wasserman of Texas, would allow his Arkansas Hotels and Entertainment Inc. to operate casinos in Boone, Crittenden, Garland, Jefferson, Miller, Pulaski and Sebastian counties.
The other group, called Arkansas Counts, would allow Nancy Todd’s Poker Palace LLC to operate casino-style table games and up to four casinos in Crittenden, Franklin, Miller and Pulaski counties.