AR Senator Wants Stiffer Policies on Body Art & Modifications
By: Lisa Mendenhall
Updated: March 4, 2013
An Arkansas Senator is pushing for a ban on non-traditional body art and skin implants.
The Senate Health Committee has passed Senator Missy Irvin's bill to limit body art procedures, particularly scarification and dermal implants.
Scarification is a procedures involving the scarring of the skin using heat to form a tattoo without ink, and implants are placing ornaments under the skin.
A tattoo artist in Rose City says scarification and implants should be regulated, but not banned.
"I just think it's difficult to tell someone what they can and cannot do with their body," says Scott Diffee, from The Parlor. "Making it outlawed is what it's gonna do is make it go underground, where people are going to try and do this stuff at home, where it's not regulated, where it's not sanctioned."
Diffee says Arkansas has the stiffest regulations on tattooing and body piercing.
