Behind the cards: Whites account for 83.4% of cards, Blacks and Hispanics underrepresented July 11, 2022 By Griffin Coop More than 8 in 10 of the Arkansans approved for medical marijuana patient cards are white, according to the most recent data from the state Department of Health. In Fiscal Year 2021, whites accounted for 83.4% of patient cards, while Black Arkansans accounted for only 8.54% of the cards. According to the 2020 census, whites account for 70.2% of the Arkansas population and Blacks account for 15.1% of the population. Hispanics represented 2.13% of the patient cards, according to the report, while representing 8.5% of the population. The race or ethnicity of 3,479 of the cardholders, or 3.8%, of the cardholders was unknown. Over and under The numbers show that whites in Arkansas are overrepresented among cardholders and Blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented. Why is that? The answers to that question could be manyfold. One contributing factor might be the costs associated with a medical marijuana card and how affordable that is relative to each group’s income. As we reported previously, medical marijuana cards require a $50 application fee, a doctor’s certification and a state-issued ID. If a prospective patient doesn’t have a doctor, they can use a service that specializes in medical marijuana ID card certifications, such as Ozark MMJ Cards, which charges $125 for certifications in Arkansas. According to a report from Aspire Arkansas, whites in Arkansas have a median household income of $51,340. Blacks and Hispanics in Arkansas earn less, according to the data with household incomes of $32,070 and $42,532, respectively. Aspire Arkansas is a project of the Arkansas Community Foundation. For more information on patient cards, check out our reports on the number of cards by qualifying conditions and by county of residence.
