Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and KUAR FM 89.

And thanks for joining us.

Every one for Arkansas Week, there is more on the November ballot in Arkansas.

Their names, voters will decide not only offices, but issues four of them this year.

And in a moment, we'll go over all of them with an expert.

First, though, one of them in particular.

In a previous election, voters approved cannabis for medical purposes.

This year, there's a citizen initiated proposal to legalize cannabis.

Marijuana or its derivatives for recreational use.

Here's both sides.

Eddie Armstrong is chair of Responsible Growth Arkansas, which advocates for legalization and look nefarious of Safe and secure communities, which is sternly opposed.

Gentlemen, thank you for coming in.

Mr. Armstrong, let's begin with you.

Why why does society need another mind altering, mood changing substance?

Well, first things first.

Thanks to you for having me on.

Legal cannabis is for regulated consumer safety.

And as you have seen from over 58.5% of the state's population that have taken polls and been asked if passed, if voted on tomorrow, would it pass, have said yes.

Over 90% of Americans across the country are in favor of this legalization effort that's going on across many states.

And over 190,000 citizens across every corner of this state signed a recent petition saying that now is the time.

And as Arkansans, we want to make our own choice to see recreational cannabis on the ballot.

I think it will do a tremendous amount of good.

We're only scratching the surface at how many health benefits for our veterans.

People that are going through several elements can benefit from this amazing plant.

The top four reasons for us are simple.

It's going to create more jobs.

It's going to provide cancer research.

It's going to support our law enforcement.

And last but not least, it's going to help improve our economy.

As you've just seen with the recent numbers that have come out in our economic study.

Let me go to the other side here for a rebuttal, sir.

Go ahead, Steve.

Thank you for having me on.

And, Eddie, thank you for your service in the legislature.

You know, I'm from Colorado, so I'm living legalization firsthand with my lovely, lovely wife and two little young girls.

And I can tell you that when we had the ballot measure come up for us in 2012, they made the exact same sky high promises that he's making right now, that we would fund our schools, that we would have plenty of money for law enforcement, that jobs and tax revenues would come in.

But not a single one of those promises has borne out.

Our Democratic U.S.

Senator John Hickenlooper, who was governor when we were implementing legalization.

He is a supporter of legalization, but he says do not legalize marijuana for the tax revenue.

It is a drop in the bucket.

So even people who are administrating this, who support it will tell you, don't do this for the money.

There's not that much money in there.

And as far as the costs involved, you know, we're hearing a lot about revenue and money to be made.

We're hearing nothing about costs.

Here in Colorado, we did a cost study by the Centennial Institute that found we are losing $4.50 in societal costs for every $1 in tax revenue that we make in our state.

So that's health care issues.

That's the 25% increase in youth addiction to marijuana that we're seeing in our state and other legal states.

That's the impact of high potency marijuana, because we're saying marijuana, many of you are probably thinking of joints and Woodstock weed.

That is long gone.

Now we're talking about 99% potency.

THC products dabbing it waxes, shatters.

They're being sold in promotions that are very appealing to youth, like in candy formulations, sodas, ice creams, etc.

This industry is invested in to the tune of more than $2 billion by the big tobacco industry.

So we have a lot to be concerned about.

There are issues on the roads, more people dying from impaired drivers, lots of costs and consequences to legalizing another addictive substance in Arkansas.

And so I hope you'll be educated on this and vote no.

Well, Mr. ROMNEY Yeah, go ahead and rebut it.

But let me it may be popular, Mr. Armstrong, but is it prudent is it clinically medically prudent to do that?

Well, we're going through those trials, as you've seen right now.

And there are many trials out there and studies from the realm of caring and many other well suited organizations in Washington, D.C. that are looking at the medical benefits and improvements to this.

But I'd like to rebut what my what my friend has said today.

You know, we're not Colorado, we're not Las Vegas, Nevada.

We're not California.

We're Arkansas.

And I think when you see the safe and secure community ads, Arkansans are not going to be fooled or dismayed by somebody from out of state trying to tell us how to make our choices.

In fact, here's what we have done.

But does that make the arguments any less valid?

Here's what makes it valid.

Our cancer research accreditation will mean a tremendous amount for people that need their most critical care needs taken care of here in state right now, at the tune of people that from UMass and other places have spoken to our legislative body ask for a total of $96 million.

If you say the money is not going anywhere, here is what we have done thus far under the medical program.

And the first year there were $10 million allotted there through the governor's rainy day and medical marijuana, which allowed for $19 million in fiscal year 2021.

There was 26 million fiscal year 2020 to 27 million.

That's the tune of $72 million towards a $96 million five year goal that our cancer research accreditation, which was proposed, proposed to our legislature and we're on track to not only supersede that goal, but then be able to bring forth additional revenues for general revenue to help our law enforcements fight serious crimes in our communities.

Face this opioid and fentanyl battle that we have going on in our communities across our state provide over 6000 plus new jobs to our state.

So when people from Colorado so say it's done nothing.

I'm a frequent visitor of Denver.

I've seen the benefits of downtown Denver.

They're trail lines now.

They're trolleys, how it's been rebuilt there.

And some of that must have come from somewhere.

And last but not least, if we're not Colorado, Colorado is on trend to be the sixth most desirable state to move to in the country.

So something has to be going right there.

And when I think about our nature trails in the Ozarks or our mineral waters and hot springs and people coming here for various reasons, why not implement this and regulate it in a formidable way, as opposed to being faced with the dilemmas that we may face for bringing this in from our bordering.

Question for Mr.

Different.

There is, sir.

I mean, marijuana is so ubiquitous in every state across the entire landscape that I know many law enforcement officers and small amounts, they don't even bother to arrest him.

Is it's almost a fait accompli, is it not?

And if it is, why not accept the social benefits of it?

I mean, the tax revenue.

So it's great question.

So first of all, you know, Eddy, obviously, I know you're, you know, in the industry, in the marijuana industry.

So you're a good business person.

You know, you can't go to your board and your investors and say, here's all the money we made without talking about the costs.

Okay.

And so we have to talk about what it costs to regulate marijuana, what it costs for law enforcement to have to deal with this.

And what we've learned in Colorado and every other legal state is that the costs of dealing with the harms of marijuana legalization and the regulatory burden of marijuana legalization vastly exceed the revenues that are brought in.

And, you know, as far as law enforcement is concerned.

Well, hey, let me finish.

So as far as law enforcement is concerned, California, 80% of their market is illegal.

So in other words, people are still going to drug dealers for their marijuana 80% of the time in that state, Michigan, 80% illegal market is where all the marijuana is being used.

So legalizing it does not get rid of the cartels and the drug dealers.

And so you talk to our law enforcement here in Colorado and other legal states, they'll tell you they are inundated with all the illegal marijuana growers.

They're finding we are finding the Mexican cartels.

We're finding, you know, other foreign cartels that are setting up shop at illegal growers.

They're going into suburban neighborhoods, gutting houses, filling them with illegal marijuana grows, and then selling that marijuana on the black market using legalization as a cover.

So, you know, we are not making money on this.

And you asked Senator John Hickenlooper, you asked other people who are involved here in Colorado, and even if they're proponents of legalization, they'll tell you that it's not been this panacea.

And again, what we're not talking about is the impact on our kids.

Right.

So my neighbor is Laura Stack.

Her son, Johnny Stack dabbed marijuana user using a medical marijuana card that he legally obtained.

He got marijuana dabs, super high potency marijuana, 99%.

And then he went he had a psychotic break and he jumped off of a parking garage literally just a few miles from where I live.

She's now spending her life trying to educate parents on the harms of high potency marijuana.

So when you legalize this drug, you commercialize it.

You allow an industry to come into your state and start lobbying, start reducing regulations, start promoting these marijuana products.

And, you know, as far as, you know, people using marijuana, look, if you're going to smoke a joint, your own home, that's not my problem.

I don't think anybody should go to jail for that.

We can decriminalize the possession of marijuana.

But the question before Arkansas today is, do you want a legal commercial industry backed by big tobacco, backed by big pharma, promoting these products, clearly appealing to youth and supercharging the potency and addictiveness of this drug?

That's the question.

You got to think about one argument at a core a core argument.

Any way the social costs outweigh the social benefits.

I would soon disagree and say that that's speculative.

What we have seen here in Arkansas is that we have been able to provide and do some real good.

And as a former lawmaker, knowing what it means to have to bring forth a balanced budget going to RSA each term, this is a good business decision for Arkansans.

When we think about this, the fear tactics of it getting into the hands of children we're already experiencing at the early stage is how to regulate that, to make child preventive packaging.

We're going to ensure that I'm making certain once the feds do time and that becomes even much more stronger eliminating or preventing home grow.

We don't want weed growing on every corner, in every block of our communities.

And by the way, this is way before your time.

But there's a guy by the name of Barry Seales that many of us remember when cannabis was a real thing here.

And for us to now be regulating it in the natural state in a meaningful way where over 89,000 patients are able to access it now, they will be able to access it and not pay the tax on it.

And we'll be able to open up a meaningful market in a regulated way that I think benefits Arkansans, if not anything else.

The way we're going to distribute the tax dollars in the future.

So I want to see the people of Arkansas make this choice.

They put their signatures on the petition.

We would like to take this out to the people of our state and spread our message and then ask for them to go to the polls and vote in November.

It's already been polled high.

Now let's take it to the people and allow for them to make the choice.

This is indeed Reagan is populist, correct, Steve?

Well, that's the motto, right?

That's correct.

So we have a choice here and we want Arkansans to make that choice to vote for issue four in November.

Well well, thanks for making me younger.

I never met Mr. Seale, but I'm familiar with covering that news.

All right.

All right, Mr.. For us, we've got a couple of minutes remaining.

Sum it up, if you will, from your perspective.

I mean, the social calls continue, in your estimation, to far outweigh the benefits.

And it's not a surprise because you look at tobacco taxes, for example, we know we lose 10 to $15 in societal costs for every $1 in tobacco tax revenue.

Okay.

So we are not making money on our addictive device drugs that we have out there already.

So we shouldn't believe the sky high promises of entrepreneurs who want to make money off of this drug, who literally, frankly, care nothing about what this does societally, as long as they're going to make a profit right now, the only winners as it comes to this ballot initiative are going to be industry players who get involved.

Laura Stack, the mother of Johnny Stack, who died by suicide after dabbing high potency marijuana.

She is left out of this conversation.

We did a big movement in Colorado to try to regulate this unbelievably high potency marijuana that's totally unrestricted in our state.

And we were shut down by the marijuana industry.

Look at Washington State where marijuana is legal.

There was and there was a whole movement to try to ban marijuana, gummy bears, which were clearly appealing to youth, clearly being pitched to our youth and the industry shut it down because they are a multibillion dollar conglomerate.

Now with lots of large players from tobacco, alcohol and pharma.

They know how to get around these regulations.

So the question before you today, Arkansas, is not do we think somebody should be free to do what they want in their own home?

Of course they should be.

We can decriminalize low level possession of marijuana.

And it's not about medicine because Arkansas already has medical marijuana.

So if you're if you think there are medical benefits, you can get that.

The question is, do you want a recreational marijuana market with large marijuana companies, advertising products all across your state?

The prevalence is there are youth being targeted and a whole lot of costs that taxpayers end up having to foot the bill for.

Don't believe this guy is entrepreneurs.

Let's listen to the signs.

Our country would soon prefer to see something like this start at the ground level before the feds, before others start to extrapolate it.

For our Kansans bar Arkansans, the people that own these companies are farmers, lawyers, doctors.

Yes, sir.

Got to end it there because we are simply out of time.

I think we did it pretty much.

We thought we put some balance in here.

Anyway, gentlemen, thank you very much for a very civil spirited conversation.

Vote for issue for.

All right.

Well, we'll be back in just a moment.

We are back.

The marijuana initiative is but one of the issues that voters will decide in November.

Initiatives and referenda can be confusing for longer than a decade.

Now, to help decipher the questions we've brought in the folks from the U.

Of A's Public Policy Center.

It's earned a reputation for absolute neutrality and nonpartisanship, not to mention plain English.

The center's Kristen Higgins is here now.

Kristen, thanks very much for coming in.

Every two years we're here, you and the team are here.

Let's start with with ballot issue number one.

What are we doing here?

Okay.

Well, issue one is a constitutional amendment that would allow the General Assembly to call for a special session, either the leadership of the legislature could call it, or if you have a certain number of state legislators who want to go into special session, they could petition to do that.

So it would give them the same authority as the governor right now to call a special session which sets the agenda.

We should note that only the governor under existing could call a special session.

Only the governor can do that.

Arkansas is one of 14 states where that is the case right now.

What are the quickly, the pros and cons of it?

How will the legislature thinks that, you know, there might be a very important issue that they need to talk about and that they want to go into session and say, you know, this is important.

Let's let's talk about it, let's discuss it, let's debate it.

The opposition says, well, if it's not important enough to the for the governor to think it's important, wait till the next full session and bring it up.

Then other pros and cons that are readily apparent.

I Well, it really just depends on, you know, if you want the legislature to, to be able to call a session at any time, I wouldn't want to say pros versus cons because, you know, supporters have their thoughts and opponents have their thoughts and who's to say what's really a pro or con?

Position to our ballot issue number two.

That involves getting on the but actually literally getting on the ballot putting one on the ballot.

I mean, issue two does involve the constitutional amendments in the state laws that we vote on.

What it would do is increase the number of votes that it would take to pass a constitutional amendment or a state law from the Citizen Initiative process.

The legislature can refer up to three constitutional amendments to voters at any time and then the citizens of Arkansas actually have the ability to collect voter signatures and petition to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot or a state law on the ballot, and either one of those once they get on there.

Right now, we vote in the item that gets, you know, at least 50% plus one vote.

It passes.

Issue two proposes to put that at 60%.

So a constitutional amendment or a citizen initiative would require 60% voter approval to go into effect.

And a quick pro and con and supporters say it's too easy to amend the state constitution that out of state organizations come in, spend a lot of money and convince voters to put something into the state constitution.

Opponents say, you know, Arkansas is one of 15 states where citizens have this authority, citizenship, continue to have the authority to easily pass a state law.

And when I say easily, I mean that the legislature can pass a state law with, you know, 50% plus one regular majority, and that the citizen laws would be held to a higher standard.

So that takes us to Amendment three or yeah, ballot issued issue three.

Issue three is also a constitutional amendment from the legislature.

That's what the first three issues on the ballot always are.

Right.

Issue three is the Arkansas Religious Freedom Amendment.

And this one would prohibit the government at the state and local level from burdening people's practice of religion.

Well, who defines burden?

Well, the proposal does not define burden.

It's a very, you know, simple like sentence or two on the ballot.

It doesn't define burden.

It doesn't define the.

I guess.

Yeah.

So it doesn't define burden.

I'm sorry.

I'm trying to remember the other things that are in there.

It does define government to say that it could be a local official, a state official, anybody representing government, a government entity, agency, anything created by the state.

This would apply to like a commission.

And so it would apply to rules, ordinances, laws, agency decisions.

The advocates say.

Advocates say that putting this into the state constitution as its own amendment would enshrine protections for people's practice of religion in the state constitution.

Opponents say it doesn't do anything that the state constitution, as well as the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment in our national constitution, that it provides those safeguards already.

Now we go on to number four, and this one was not from the General Assembly.

Right.

Number four is the only one that came from the Citizen Initiative process.

It's a constitutional amendment.

And it would create a system that legally allows the sale and possession of marijuana for non recreational purposes for adults 21 and older.

And it would create a system for new dispensaries to be licensed to sell marijuana for non-medical purposes or recreational marijuana, as a lot of people call it.

And it would create a new taxing system.

It would eliminate sales tax on medical marijuana sales, but would allow sales tax to be charged on recreational marijuana sales.

Now, the the proceeds from the sale.

Much has been made about, you know, the revenues that this would generate tax generate.

Right.

So this has a supplemental state sales tax included.

So when you go purchase recreational marijuana, under this proposal, you would pay your regular state, county, city sales tax and then there would be a 10% supplemental sales tax that goes to the state.

The majority of that would go to the State General Revenue Fund.

Some of it would go to stipends paid to law enforcement officers across the state.

Some would go to UMC and then some would be earmarked for drug courts.

Now the advocates say proponents say they say this is happening around us.

This is happening across the country.

Let's legalize it here.

Let's keep this tax money here.

Let's not have possession of one ounce of marijuana, be a crime.

Opponents say, yeah, we want recreational marijuana, but not this one.

Or opponents say this is opening up marijuana, more drugs into our community.

So there's a variety of opponents who oppose it for their own issue, whether they think that a better amendment could be proposed in the future or whether they're just completely against marijuana in the first place.

And now we have already legalized clinical medicinal marijuana as you noted, also by Citizen Initiative.

And this was what, couple four years ago?

2016, actually, voters in 2016 approved medical marijuana program in Arkansas.

And right now there are 40 licenses that can be issued to sell marijuana to people who have a diagnosis from a doctor and they get a medical marijuana card and they go to these dispensaries.

Nothing about that process would change in this issue.

What and again, the the the machinery of of should this be approved as opposed to the machinery of an act of an actual enactment, would fall to what agency?

Well, this proposal puts the oversight at the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division so that there are changes in this constitution amendment that would would remove some of the very specific language regarding packaging, regarding the level of THC in marijuana edibles.

And it would put into place language that says the Alcohol Beverage Control Division would have the authority to set rules related to those in the future.

We have an example, a prototype.

You're not in a prototype, but the actual product itself, every two years you produce this and it is a sterling user, I must say, of taxpayer money.

Tell us about it.

Sure.

Well, this is our voter guide on the Arkansas constitutional amendments.

This year.

There are only constitutional amendments on the ballot.

But if there's ever a state law or a referendum, we include that in here as well as initiated acts.

Yeah.

So this is a rundown of each issue.

It gives voters the ability to see what the ballot title itself looks like so that, you know, they have 10 minutes on Election Day to vote to cast their votes.

And so this gives you some time ahead of Election Day to go over the issues, see what the title looks like, see what supporters are saying, opponents are saying, and getting some answers to some questions that you might have such as when was the last time we voted on this?

Or What kind of money is involved in this?

Or What do other states do?

How do you go about producing this?

Well, we take the the ballot titles that are that are approved at the legislature or through the citizen initiative process, and just go through it line by line and go, well, what does this mean?

What is this?

Or What would this do?

And then look at existing law and see what the changes would mean.

Kristen Higgins, thanks very much for coming in.

Thank you.

We hope it's not another two years before you come in to see us again.

Thank you.

Thanks again.

A good deal of attention paid this past week appropriately to the 65th anniversary of the Little Rock Central High Crisis.

The commemoration included a ceremony headlined by President Clinton and the renaming of a section of the street facing central lot to honor those nine black students.

One of the surviving eight took time to speak with our Kacey Sanders.

Here's Dr. Terrence Roberts.

Here we are at Central High School.

And this is a 65th year since the chaos of 1957.

And it's interesting, we're talking about the same things we talked about in 1957.

The list of issues keeps coming up.

If you go back and look at the chronicles of what we did for the 30th, the 40th, the 50th, etc., it's always been the same issue over and over.

Same question has come up.

We in this country say that we want every child to have an opportunity to be educated.

We make bold statements about that, and yet our actions belie that statement.

We don't support education to the degree that I would like to see it.

I would like to see every child from the very earliest age learn how to learn, develop a methodology of learning, develop a way of combing through the archives, developing a way to separate truth from fiction, and to come through that experience as an adult, as somebody who is firmly grounded in the truth that I would love to see.

Doctor Terrence Roberts of the Little Rock Nine.

That does it for us for this week.

Thanks very much for watching, as always.

And we'll see you next week.

Support for Arkansas week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the Arkansas Times and KUAR FM 89.