An Arkansas lawmaker plans to introduce two bills that would amend the state’s new voter-enacted medical cannabis laws, one of which would prevent the program’s implementation until medical cannabis is recognized by the federal government, KHTV reports. The second bill would outlaw smoking as a delivery method.
Republican State Sen. Jason Rapert called the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment “snake oil wrapped up in a joint” saying he would closely monitor the regime to make sure “it’s going forward as medicine.”
“Who’s gonna ask a three-year-old kid with epilepsy to smoke a joint? C’mon! It’s just recreational marijuana using, for their own purposes, the sad stories of people that truly need help and are truly looking for assistance from some new drug that could help them,” he said in the report, while suggesting that pills, oils, and edibles would be sufficient.
If Rapert gets his way, not even three-year-olds with epilepsy would have access to cannabis-based therapies. His bill to delay the program until medical cannabis use is approved by the feds would effectively delay the program in perpetuity as there is no indication the federal government plans to legalize medical cannabis use.
“Under the 1970 federal Controlled Substances Act, marijuana usage, distribution, possession, is illegal under United States federal law, and that has not changed,” he said. “There are people serving in prison right now for the same activities that, apparently, Arkansas thinks it can proceed with. We are a nation of laws and a state of laws. You must change the law to remove an irreconcilable difference that we have between state and federal law on this particular issue.”