Living the high life

Is Arkansas headed toward recreational pot?

It’s not hard to imagine a shop selling marijuana on Fayetteville’s Dickson Street. Indeed, if recreational pot becomes a reality in Arkansas, one can bet there will be a serious run on opportunities to sell the drug in the city’s entertainment district, just down the street from what might appear to be a high-potential market in and around the University of Arkansas.

Thank goodness we’re not there, yet.

That’s our thinking as we’ve watched California over the last few days. On Monday, retail shops began selling marijuana to any willing buyer in the Golden State. As the front-page story in Tuesday’s paper noted, the new year opened what proponents predict will become the world’s largest market for legalized recreational marijuana.

California isn’t the first state to jump into the market. It’s the sixth, joining Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Nevada in offering the drug for retail sale through specialty shops, not through pharmacies.

One could say, backed by credible evidence, that the resistance to legally available marijuana is waning in this country, at least at the local and state government levels. Federal law still views marijuana of any kind as a controlled substance, but federal authorities have so far stayed out of the state-by-state decisions to decriminalize marijuana possession and use.

Sales of marijuana remain illegal in Arkansas, but the state will soon license up to five cultivation facilities to grow and distribute marijuana and 32 dispensaries that will be authorized to sell marijuana to medically qualified patients. The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission has received nearly 100 applications for the five cultivation center licenses; it’s gotten more than 200 applications for dispensary sites.

Advocates championed marijuana’s effects on multiple medical conditions and asked voters in November 2016 to approve an amendment to the state Constitution making its sale and use for those purposes legal. About 53 percent of Arkansas voters said yes, setting the state’s populace on a journey toward more liberalized use of the drug, even though the measure still requires a physician’s intervention before a person can obtain a state-issued identification card. That card, once issued, grants authority to purchase.

California has had legal medical marijuana for more than 20 years. We suspect the transition pressures in Arkansas won’t take that long. The high level of interest in medical marijuana cultivation and sales isn’t just a rush to help the ailing; it’s staking a claim in anticipation of a 21st century gold rush. If medical marijuana were the final destination, we suspect there would be less excitement about Arkansas’ changes.

If that process could be sped up, some advocates will cheer. We advocated against legalizing pot for medical reasons, so it will come as no surprise this editorial board isn’t eager for the day pot becomes as ubiquitous as liquor and the stores that sell it. It’s a drug, deserving of the same restrictions as others once they’re legalized, but marijuana advocates have managed to turn their crusade into a political prescription rather than a medical one. And they’re winning.

The question very well may be when, not if, Arkansas joins the ranks of California and the other states in converting marijuana into a form of recreational activity. As with the advent of smartphones in the daily lives of people, that’s likely to have far-reaching effects that nobody fully appreciates yet.

That hasn’t stopped the rapid spread of smartphones, though, has it?