As Arkansas’ medical marijuana industry blossoms, with the state issuing more licenses for cultivation centers and dispensaries to serve more than 60,000 authorized Arkansas patients, cultivators are pushing back against a narrative that short wholesale supplies have kept prices too high for some patients to buy.

“The argument for issuing additional grow licenses was based on the idea that cultivators charge too much for cannabis,” one grow operation executive told Arkansas Business. “They said basically that there’s no supply and patients can’t get their medicine. That’s simply not true. We welcome competition and the issuing of new licenses, but not under a false premise.”

A group pushing to place a recreational marijuana amendment on the November ballot is breathing a sigh of relief following an Arkansas Supreme Court ruling allowing them to collect signatures electronically.

rkansas’ medical marijuana sales have increased significantly since March 1 and there is a consensus as to why: COVID-19.

The state of Arkansas reported Tuesday (May 12) that overall sales of medical cannabis recently surpassed $75 million and 12,000 pounds since the first dispensary opened a year ago in May 2019.

Roughly 40% of overall sales have occurred since March 1, 2020. Over the past two-and-a-half months, medical marijuana dispensaries have sold $29.92 million of products.

Arkansas Marijuana Card, a network of clinics specializing in providing evaluations and recommendations to patients seeking treatment with medical marijuana, announced recently they will begin conducting patient evaluations through telemedicine.

The announcement comes just days after the Arkansas Department of Health authorized emergency measures expanding the allowable uses of telemedicine services in an effort to stem the spread of COVID-19.

Farmers in Arkansas hoping to cash in on the state’s newly legal crop — industrial hemp, a variety of the cannabis plant low in intoxicants — are finding it’s tougher than they expected. 

“I think a lot of people came into this program expecting to make the big bucks, or save the family farm, and we’re kind of learning that that’s not the case,” Caleb Allen, the coordinator of the Arkansas Department of Agriculture’s industrial hemp research program, told the Arkansas Times in February. “Maybe 20 or 30 years in the future, who knows, but it’s just too new right now to really say, ‘Yes, this is a definite crop that will save our farm.’ It’s a lot of hard work.” 

Of the potential markets left untapped in America's legal marijuana industry, The South is the biggest of them all. A collective 125.5 million people live in the Southern United States, and only a fraction of them have access to medical marijuana. None of those 125.5 million Americans have access to recreational or adult-use marijuana.

That’s 38 percent of the country, a vast market for cannabis entrepreneurs. But social conservatism and a reluctance to change marijuana policy have kept this market from getting developed. That could change soon.

A recent surge in sales brought Arkansas’ nearly-year-old medical marijuana industry over the $50 million threshold.

The milestone comes after what local television station KATV described Monday as a “significant increase in sales last week.” Since the state’s first medical cannabis dispensary opened its doors last year, patients have spent $50.7 million on 7,932 pounds worth of medical marijuana, according to the outlet.

This year has been momentous for cannabis reform, from the Illinois General Assembly becoming the first state legislature to pass a bill to regulate cannabis like alcohol to the U.S. House of Representatives passing the SAFE Banking Act and forging ahead with the MORE Act. 

It’s important to celebrate these victories, but with the end of 2019 comes the beginning of 2020, which is already shaping up to be the biggest year ever for marijuana-policy reform. 

Arkansas may consider revoking medical marijuana licenses for dispensaries that aren’t open by June, officials said.