The Arkansas Supreme Court has asked to uphold the medical marijuana measure on the 2024 ballot. • Arkansas Advocate

The group behind a proposed medical marijuana ballot measure asked the Arkansas Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn the secretary of state's rejection of its proposal, require the signatures submitted to be counted and certify the measure for the November ballot.

Little Rock attorney Stephen Lancaster filed a lawsuit 16 page complaint on behalf of Arkansans for Patient Access and Ballot Committee member Bill Paschall, questioning Secretary of State John Thurston's “prevention of the will of the people and their right to pass legislation on their initiative.”

Plaintiffs also filed an application to expedite the case, appoint a special master and issue an injunction. Meanwhile, Protect Arkansas Kids, a voting committee that opposes it Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024filed its own motions Tuesday afternoon, including one to intervene in the case and another requesting separate briefing.

Medical marijuana group is expected to appeal the rejected ballot measure to the Arkansas Supreme Court

Thurston continued Monday said his office has validated 88,040 signatures in support of the Arkansas for Patient Access measure, 2,664 just under the required 90,704 for a proposed constitutional amendment to be put on the ballot.

In Tuesday's complaint, Lancaster said Thurston refused to count thousands of signatures from Arkansas voters and if they had been counted, the proposed constitutional amendment would have been upheld.

APA submitted in July more than 108,000 signatures in support of the proposal, which would bring several changes to the state's medical marijuana industry, including allowing health care providers to conduct patient assessments via telemedicine and eliminating patient card application fees.

The Secretary of State's Office considered 77,000 signatures were recognized as validwhich gave the voting committee a 30-day period in which to collect additional signatures.

According to Tuesday's complaint, the ballot initiative process proceeded normally until the APA received one Letter dated August 8th From Thurston, he said his office “discovered” that the group had not complied with state law, which requires the sponsor of a measure to certify that any paid advertiser has not committed any disqualifying crimes. According to the letter, a manager at the advertising company attempted to do the certification instead of the APA.

While the 77,000 previously notarized signatures remained valid, the letter said the standard would be applied to additional signatures submitted during the healing period. This means, the complaint says, that any additional signatures submitted by Aug. 30, including about 18,000 collected before the Aug. 8 letter, would not count when providing the required information to the paid canvasser from the advertising company would be submitted.

Lancaster called the situation “nonsensical” and said that Thurston was well aware and has had practice for years to have an agent do the certification on behalf of a sponsor. The August 8 letter was the first time Thurston had taken this position, which Lancaster said was “unsupported by facts or law.”

In addition, while the Secretary and Attorney General assert that the responsibilities set forth in the initiative's statutes cannot be delegated, “they routinely delegated their own responsibilities to representatives under those same statutes and, in other situations, negotiated with representatives of the sponsor when appropriate.” “General,” said Lancaster.