Medical Marijuana in Arkansas: The Risks of Rushed Drafting

Arkansas voters passed the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment to the state constitution in late 2016. Almost certainly, the vast majority of voters did so without reading or understanding the intricacies of the initiative, and instead voted simply to affirm their desire to permit the medical use of marijuana in the state. Among many other provisions, the amendment imposed a 120 day time limit (later extended by the Arkansas legislature to 180 days) within which the Arkansas Department of Health and other agencies were to adopt rules implementing the voter mandate. While six months might seem like plenty of time in which to adopt appropriate legislation and regulations, the reality is that careful drafting is painstaking. Rushing through drafting produces writing that is unclear and inconsistent. It can result in requirements with which it is difficult (or impossible) to comply. The medical marijuana provisions contained an unfortunately large number of examples of the problems caused by rushed drafting. This article seeks to educate those who wish to use the constitutional amendment process in the future about the difficulty of clear drafting when particularly complex issues are involved. Ideally, the amendment process would not be used to accomplish this kind of task, but if the public deems it essential to act, more reasonable time-frames should be utilized. In addition, constitutional amendments should not restrict the state legislature’s right to amend and update the amendment unless truly central to the amendment’s purpose. Finally, this article also seeks to provide some guidance for persons with an interest in how the Medical Marijuana Amendment is implemented

Crowdfunding in Arkansas? Yes, you can!

Following enactment of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (also known as the JOBS Act) in 2012, the SEC expanded the options for issuers seeking an exemption from the registration requirement for the sale of securities under federal law, while simultaneously preempting inconsistent state law. One such innovation was Regulation Crowdfunding, generally referred to as Reg. CF, which currently allows compliant issuers to raise up to $1,070,000 in any 12-month period by seeking relatively small investments from a large number of investors

Heads up! Arkansas has a new LLC Act

This past legislative session Senate Bill 601, sponsored by Senator Jonathan Dismang, was enacted into law, becoming Ark. Act 1041 on April 30, 2021. This act repeals the old LLC Act and adopts the Uniform Limited Liability Company Act (“ULLCA”), with minimal changes from the uniform language. This short piece points out some basic information about the Arkansas ULLCA and some of the major changes in Arkansas law applicable to LLCs. While lawyers will obviously need to consult the new statute when actual issues arise, this article should at least provide a “heads up” notice to practitioners with LLCs or their members and managers as clients

Appropriate Regulation of Antibiotics in Livestock Feed

For decades, antibiotics have been widely used, saving lives and reducing suffering. Such drugs are routinely employed among both human and farm animal populations. However, scientific data now links the use of antibiotics at subtherapeutic levels in livestock feed to the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria in the human population. After examining the current research, this Article concludes that despite short-term economic benefits associated with the widespread use of antibiotics in agriculture, the risk to human health justifies a change in policy. This Article recommends a number of steps to minimize the spread of antibiotic resistance. The primary changes would be to phase out the use of antibiotics as livestock feed additives, and to refuse to approve new drugs for this purpose. In either instance, this use would be permissible if the drug sponsor provides convincing evidence that the agricultural use of its particular antibiotic presents no appreciable risk to human health