Arkansas will move forward with a ban on using SNAP for candy and soda
despite recent court ruling
[June 30, 2026]
By TRAVIS LOLLER
Arkansas is moving forward with its plan to ban government food aid from
being used to buy candy and soda beginning on Wednesday, even though a
federal judge ruled last week that similar restrictions in other states
violated federal law.
Announcing the plan on Monday, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited an
urgent need to combat a “chronic disease epidemic” in America, including
high rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
On one floor of the state’s Department of Human Services, “our state has
been approving food stamp purchases for soft drinks and candy, while on
another floor, our state’s Medicaid program is paying to treat the
chronic diseases those products can help create,” she said.
Food stamps is an older name for the Supplemental 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.
In a news release, the Arkansas governor's office cited Stanford
University research that found restricting the purchase of sugary drinks
with food stamps could reduce rates of obesity and type-2 diabetes.
However, overall research remains mixed about whether restricting SNAP
purchases improves diet quality and health.
Debates over SNAP benefits are common
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 SNAP to be used to buy rotisserie
chicken from the grocery store.
Arkansas is one of 23 states to receive a waiver allowing 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 pushed for the ban as part of the “Make America Healthy Again”
campaign.
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.
The USDA acted illegally in approving waivers, judge finds
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.
[to top of second column]
|
A California's SNAP benefits shopper pushes a cart through a
supermarket in Bellflower, Calif., Feb. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Allison
Dinner, File)
 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.
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’ decision to go forward with
the program is “putting that to the extreme test.”
Sanders noted the ruling in her announcement on Monday but said,
"Arkansas is moving full speed ahead, because we won’t wait around
while our people get less and less healthy and we spend more and
more taxpayer dollars trying to fix the problem.”
Grocery stores are responsible for enforcing the SNAP
restrictions
Steve Goode, executive director of the Arkansas Grocers and Retail
Merchants Association, said that he “wouldn’t want to guess” at how
prepared the state’s businesses are to implement the benefits
changes this week.
“SNAP benefits in retail have been the same for years,” he said,
noting that this is going to be a “big change.”
“Some of our members that have stores in other states have done this
already and the results have been OK,” 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’t been the case in some other
states.
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’t.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
