All of the commissioners are present – Travis Story is participating over conference call.
Dr. Carlos Roman brought up the question of how a school is defined as referenced in Amendment 98, governing MMJ in Arkansas. To clarify, there are minimum distances that a cultivation facility or dispensary must be from churches, schools, and daycares. As of now, the distance is measured from the closest point from property line to property line. The commissioners agreed to keep this rule in place.
The commissioners are reviewing the draft rules and regulations for cultivation facilities and dispensaries. Dr. Roman brought up the concern about deleterious health effects for newborns of women smoking medical marijuana while pregnant.
The commissioners are focused on the public education, awareness, research and outreach plan portion of the cultivation facility application.

Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commissioners from left Dr. Carlos Roman, James Miller, Dr. Ronda Henry-Tillman, Dr. Stephen Carroll
Dispensaries must declare if they intend to grow MMJ or not when their application is submitted. There will be a process for dispensaries to switch from non-growing to growing and vice versa after the dispensary licenses have been awarded.
Motions passed:
- They’ve adopted the cultivation facility and dispensary rules as amended today
Next steps:
- DFA will publish a notice that the final rules have been published.
- The ABC is planning on holding a public hearing on the rules, Friday March 31st, in the Bowen School of Law Friday Courtroom at UALR. The public hearing could go on for several hours.
- The rules could be published as soon as this Thursday.
Prolonging long as possible you people are denied people with medical problems as long as you can. One day you will pay for your ideals. Kama will get you for what your doing. Your time is up this just shows your you don’t care about people with medical problems.
I can assure you that the commissioners do care about Arkansas patients. They have worked diligently to make sure that the process and the rules were rolled out within the statutory timeframe.
This will happen.
Now, we need you to contact your representatives to defeat the bills that could kill our industry. In-session number for the house is 501-682-6211, your Senate is 501-682-6107 or 501-682-2902.
I’m actually impressed with all that’s been done so far we knew going in it would take some time to get an up and running businesses in place .
I also agree that the commissioners care, and I’m impressed with the progress so far. If you look at the timeline if states before us, we are doing good. We also have the luxury of noting the lessons learned from previous states. It is also good advice to channel your voice where it matters against potentially detrimental legislation.