A national parking service provider that operates in Little Rock, Fayetteville and elsewhere in the state has directed its rewards program to remove cannabis products from its available rewards.
ParkMobile, which allows users in cities across the country to pay for parking on streets or in lots through a smartphone app, provides users with rewards through a third-party company named Nift. Those rewards had included products from Five CBD, which sells products containing hemp-derived non-psychoactive CBD and psychoactive THC without the need of a medical marijuana card.
The products can be legally shipped to Arkansas.
Earlier this month, Nift sent emails to some ParkMobile users promoting a $50 gift card for cannabis products from Five.
After a national anti-marijuana group drew attention to the matter earlier this month, ParkMobile spokeswoman Haley Haas said this week that the company has worked with Nift to remove cannabis products from ParkMobile’s rewards “to help promote the health and safety of the public.”
“We care about our customers, and their health and safety is a top priority,” Haas said.
Smart Approaches to Marijuana raised concerns about the rewards earlier this month, calling it “ParkMobile’s free drugs campaign.”
On Wednesday, the group celebrated the decision in a statement but said it was “deeply troubling” that the organization’s leadership had not expressed concern sooner.
Earlier this month, Smart Approaches to Marijuana called on ParkMobile to make a donation to “a national safe driving campaign that raises awareness about drugged driving.” The organization also asked the company to condemn psychoactive drug use and apologize to its customers for “encouraging drug use.”
Haas did not say if ParkMobile intends to honor the requests. Nift did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Smart Approaches to Marijuana is no stranger to Arkansas cannabis politics. The organization was active in the campaign to defeat a recreational marijuana amendment in Arkansas in 2022 and has formed a ballot question committee to oppose a proposed expansion of the state’s medical marijuana program this year. In 2022, the group ran misleading TV ads about a study of the number of infants testing positive for cannabis at a 42-bed hospital in Pueblo, Colorado, that it described as a “major hospital.”
“If any brand truly cares about its customers’ health and safety they should be actively working to stop the commercialization and normalization of psychoactive drugs,” said Kevin Sabet, the former White House drug policy advisor who leads the anti-marijuana group.
The products in question contain hemp-derived THC, which is a psychoactive cannabis product that Congress allowed when it legalized hemp and its derivatives in the 2018 Farm Bill. Arkansas lawmakers briefly banned the products last year before a federal lawsuit led to a judge halting the law in September.
“While some states have banned or tightly regulated these products, interstate commerce is legal due to the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp,” Aaron Smith, CEO of the National Cannabis Industry Association, said in an email Thursday.
ParkMobile is available in more than 100 cities and other locations across the country. Little Rock began contracting with ParkMobile in 2019 and the parking app is available on 1,920 parking spaces in the city, city spokesman Aaron Sadler said.
He added that while ParkMobile is a city contractor, ParkMobile’s rewards vendor, Nift, is not. Haas said ParkMobile is also available through the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, which operates some parking decks and surface lots in the city.
“It is our understanding from ParkMobile that items have been removed from the catalog of available rewards through their vendor’s rewards program,” Sadler said.
In Fayetteville, ParkMobile is available for 2,371 city-managed parking spaces, accounting for about 47% of the city’s parking transactions. ParkMobile is also available on four privately-owned surface parking lots in the city.
Fayetteville spokeswoman Lisa Thurber said the city was not aware of the cannabis reward issue and declined to comment on ParkMobile’s decision to eliminate the cannabis rewards. Thurber said the city does not participate in the rewards program and that they may only be available to users of a certain ParkMobile program, although Haas confirmed the rewards are available to all ParkMobile users.
Elsewhere in Arkansas, ParkMobile is also available in Eureka Springs, as well as at Arkansas State University and the University of Central Arkansas.