CONWAY — Add Conway to the list of Arkansas cities and counties that have outlawed synthetic marijuana.
Despite a local businessman’s rousing and lengthy defense of both the manmade substance and real marijuana, the Conway City Council voted 7-0 Tuesday night to ban the use, possession, purchase or attempt to purchase of the substance known by trade names such as K2 and Spice. Alderman David Grimes was absent.
The vote followed similar action by the Faulkner County Quorum Court last week.
“This [ordinance] will lock in without any question that our [city] officers” will be responsible for enforcing this ban within city limits, Police Chief A.J. Gary told the aldermen.
Other places in Arkansas that have banned synthetic marijuana include Benton, Baxter, Crawford, Van Buren and Greene counties and the towns of Alpena, Springdale, Lincoln, Russellville and Paris.
The Conway measure, which carries an emergency clause, makes a violation a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail or a fine of up to $1,000 or a combination of the two for a first offense. Fines can increase to $2,000 on subsequent offenses, in addition to any jail term imposed.
Like Faulkner County’s ordinance, the measure provides for certain medical exceptions.
An advisory by the Arkansas Health Department has described the product as an “unregulated mixture of dried herbs that are sprayed with a synthetic cannabinoid like substance and sold as incense.” Typically, the product is burned and the smoke is inhaled.
Businessman Hal Naylor questioned the need for a local ban, asking aldermen why they wanted to pass the law.
Mayor Tab Townsell said he thought the drug’s hallucinatory effects were one reason.
Naylor said the product “is similar to candy cigarettes” and doesn’t need to be banned. “I do not sell it. I have never bought it. I tried it once,” he said.
Synthetic marijuana can cause anxiety and agitation, an abnormally fast heartbeat, high blood pressure, pallor, nausea, tremors, hallucinations and possibly seizures, the Health Department said.
Earlier this month, the Arkansas attorney general’s office twice declined to offer an opinion on whether a city or county could criminalize the use or sale of such a substance when the state Legislature or an administrative body with the authority to classify controlled substances had not yet done so.
In one matter, Deputy Attorney General Elisabeth A. Walker said charges have been filed in several cities based upon such local ordinances, so “the issue ... is likely to be addressed judicially.”
But Walker wrote that “municipal ordinances are entitled to the same presumption of validity that legislative enactments receive. ... Thus, similar to a state statute, a local ordinance is presumed constitutional and will be struck down only if it clearly appears that the measure is at variance with the constitution.”
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 06/23/2010