Arkansas is a strange place, CNN’s newswire discovered. Soon, though people in half of Arkansas’s counties can’t legally buy a six-pack of beer, those with qualifying medical conditions will be able to legally use marijuana throughout the state. CNN talked to Navy veteran Blake Ruckle, of Fayetteville, who said he struggled with alcoholism and his PTSD made him contemplate suicide. Marijuana was the only thing that helped.
But this self-described Christian in Fayetteville, Arkansas now faced a new battle … a moral one.
“I felt like a criminal and felt that I was displeasing to my faith and to my God. The one thing that I found that helped me was under such scrutiny and was illegal,” he said.
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According to Pew research, seven out of ten Arkansans call themselves ‘highly religious.’ To win them over, Little Rock attorney David Couch, who’s group sponsored the ballot initiative, took his case to church congregations.
“People would come up to you and whisper in your ear, ‘Hey, I’m for you. My grandma has cancer and we buy her marijuana – or my son has PTSD and we buy him marijuana.’ We had all these stories,” Couch said.
Naturally, the Family Council was available for a retrograde perspective. Paternalism courtesy of Ken Yang:
“The Christian viewpoint, the moral viewpoint is to make sure that our neighbors, our communities aren’t bringing harm upon themselves and that’s where we’re coming from. We want to help people in the correct fashion, the right form.”