Arkansas has an opportunity to progress still further by approving the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act, which will be on the general-election ballot. The state Supreme Court last week unanimously rejected a mean-spirited legal challenge, filed by the Coalition to Preserve Mean Spirits, that would have kept the act off the ballot. (Really, the group uses the name Coalition to Preserve Arkansas Values, but it’s a familiarly cold-hearted bunch of people who call their prejudices values.) Reluctant to admit ill will, the coalition argued instead that the act’s ballot title was misleading, being both too short and too long. The court found that the ballot title is “intelligible, honest and impartial,” (Rather the opposite of the CPAV.)
The act would permit the use of marijuana for medical purposes but only if prescribed by a physician and only for certain ailments. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have approved medical marijuana; Arkansas would be the first in the South. A vote for medical marijuana is a vote to try to relieve a sick neighbor’s suffering. Thanks to the Supreme Court for allowing Arkansans to do so.