{"id":2545,"date":"2026-06-30T15:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2545"},"modified":"2026-06-30T15:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:14:11","slug":"arkansas-defies-federal-court-to-launch-snap-candy-and-soda-ban-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2545","title":{"rendered":"Arkansas defies federal court to launch SNAP candy-and-soda ban Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Announcing the plan on Monday, Gov.\u00a0Sarah Huckabee Sanders\u00a0cited an urgent need to combat a \u201cchronic disease epidemic\u201d in America, including high rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2543\">At the heart of Anthropic\u2019s clashes with the U.S. government, a decision not to play by the new rules of Trump\u2019s Washington<\/a><\/p>\n<p>On one floor of the state\u2019s Department of Human Services, \u201cour state has been approving food stamp purchases for soft drinks and candy, while on another floor, our state\u2019s Medicaid program is paying to treat the chronic diseases those products can help create,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Food stamps is an older name for the\u00a0Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The federally funded and state-run program provides a monthly stipend for low-income families to buy groceries. It is used by nearly 42 million Americans, or about one in eight.<\/p>\n<p>In a news release, the Arkansas governor\u2019s office cited\u00a0Stanford University research\u00a0that found restricting the purchase of sugary drinks with food stamps could reduce rates of obesity and type-2 diabetes. However, overall research\u00a0\u00a0about whether restricting SNAP purchases improves diet quality and health.<\/p>\n<h4>Debates over SNAP benefits are common<\/h4>\n<p>Lawmakers at the state and federal level have long debated which foods should be eligible for purchase with SNAP. Currently, benefits cannot be used to buy hot prepared foods, but a bipartisan group of U.S. senators has introduced a bill that would allow\u00a0SNAP to be used to buy rotisserie chicken\u00a0from the grocery store.<\/p>\n<p>Arkansas is one of\u00a023 states to receive a waiver\u00a0allowing it to restrict the purchase of some sugary foods and drinks. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins have\u00a0pushed for the ban\u00a0as part of the \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>While the goals of the state restrictions are similar, the exact rules vary. Some states want to ban the purchase of both sugary drinks and candy using SNAP and others want to prohibit only the purchase of sugary beverages.<\/p>\n<h4>The USDA acted illegally in approving waivers, judge finds<\/h4>\n<p>Last week, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington vacated USDA approval of the pilot projects that allowed new SNAP restrictions in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2541\">GCC debt markets have rallied since the ceasefire, but tight liquidity remains a key hurdle<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The judge said the ruling was not a reflection on the merits of the program, but said the projects were not permitted under the statute the USDA was citing. The agency also failed to follow its own regulations for implementing a pilot project, she ruled.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Arkansas program is being implemented under the same regulations as the programs that were vacated. David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University, said that after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year, federal district courts generally no longer issue nationwide injunctions. Still, Arkansas\u2019 decision to go forward with the program is \u201cputting that to the extreme test.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Sanders noted the ruling in her announcement on Monday but said, \u201cArkansas is moving full speed ahead, because we won\u2019t wait around while our people get less and less healthy and we spend more and more taxpayer dollars trying to fix the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>Grocery stores are responsible for enforcing the SNAP restrictions<\/h4>\n<p>Steve Goode, executive director of the Arkansas Grocers and Retail Merchants Association, said that he \u201cwouldn\u2019t want to guess\u201d at how prepared the state\u2019s businesses are to implement the benefits changes this week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSNAP benefits in retail have been the same for years,\u201d he said, noting that this is going to be a \u201cbig change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome of our members that have stores in other states have done this already and the results have been OK,\u201d he said. Arkansas has helped by hiring a third-party vendor to create a list of banned items for the stores to reference, which hasn\u2019t been the case in some other states.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Meanwhile, the state has also created an app for SNAP beneficiaries to use that will help them determine which items are eligible for purchase and which aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2539\">America\u2019s AI hunger has reached the Nashville Zoo and its endangered animals may be the ones to pay the price<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gov. Sanders is pushing forward under the same framework a judge vacated \u2014 and the state&#8217;s grocers say they&#8217;re not sure retailers are ready to enforce it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[364],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arkansas"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Arkansas defies federal court to launch SNAP candy-and-soda ban Wednesday - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2545\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arkansas defies federal court to launch SNAP candy-and-soda ban Wednesday - Cross Country Moving Team\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Gov. Sanders is pushing forward under the same framework a judge vacated \u2014 and the state&#039;s grocers say they&#039;re not sure retailers are ready to enforce it.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2545\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cross Country Moving Team\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-30T15:14:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=2545#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=2545\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/1b8121bfb9a1c55d1fff3fca675fceaa\"},\"headline\":\"Arkansas defies federal court to launch SNAP candy-and-soda ban Wednesday\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-30T15:14:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=2545\"},\"wordCount\":726,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=2545#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/a268ec742a6f1c885a5eefd438968f59.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"arkansas\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=2545#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=2545\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=2545\",\"name\":\"Arkansas defies federal court to launch SNAP candy-and-soda ban Wednesday - 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