By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — The state Board of Health adopted an emergency rule today to ban the sale of synthetic marijuana, or K2, though one member complained that the board was responding to political pressure rather than a true emergency.
Gov. Mike Beebe signed the rule shortly afterward, making it effective immediately.
The rule makes the sale of K2 — also called Spice and several other names — a misdemeanor punishable with a fine of up to $500 and up to one month in jail. It also includes a civil penalty of up to $1,000.
A motion to adopt the rule passed in a voice vote at an emergency meeting, with only one member of the 24-member Board of Health, Dr. Marvin Leibovich of Little Rock, voting against the motion.
The motion also calls for a non-emergency rulemaking on K2. The emergency rule will be in effect for 120 days or until replaced by a permanent rule.
Cities and counties across the state have been enacting bans of the sale of K2, a chemically-treated herbal mixture that mimics the effect of marijuana on the brain. State Health Officer Paul Halverson said Friday that health officials believe a statewide ban is needed.
“We really believe that this statewide approach is the most appropriate given the magnitude of the issue, and it would reduce the difficult tasks of having each municipality being responsible for crafting and adopting local ordinances which may or may not be challenged in court on a piecemeal basis,” he said.
Leibovich, an emergency medical doctor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said he did not see any emergency. He said health officials have learned of 26 medical emergencies that may have been related to K2, compared to about 40,000 emergencies related to alcohol that occur in the state every year.
“I think it needs to be controlled, but I really object to the fact that we’re trying to say that this is an emergency condition. I think it’s a political condition, where political pressure has been put on the Board of Health to do something,” Leibovich said.
After the meeting, Halverson told reporters that the emergency action was not a response to political pressure, but to research. Laboratory methods have just been developed to detect and measure the extent of the substance, and research has shown that the substance may cause medical problems such as tremors and convulsions, he said.
“We felt as though, because of the fact that we could predict with fair certainty the potential harm that this substance could create, that it warranted being declared an imminent hazard,” he said.
Halverson said alcohol-related medical emergencies are a serious problem, but restrictions on the sale and use of alcohol already exist. He also said the potency of K2 samples can vary unpredictably.
“In this case, what we have is a substance that has an unknown variability and is very risky,” he said. “We want to take action to protect the public from an unknown effect, and particularly to protect our children.”
State Rep. Donna Hutchinson, R-Bella Vista, spoke at the meeting in support of the emergency rule. Hutchinson had been urging health officials to adopt such a rule and had recently obtained an attorney general’s opinion stating that an emergency rule banning K2 was within the board’s authority.
“It is illogical that certain drugs are totally illegal, or have to be controlled in dosage, yet this unknown product, people are buying it and using it without discrimination,” she said.
State Rep. David Johnson, D-Little Rock, said he expected the Legislature to pass a law banning K2 during the 2011 session, but in the meantime he supported the emergency rule.
