kvoa.com:  “Opening day for marijuana dispensaries all over Arizona keeps getting pushed back.  In 2010, voters approved a measure allowing the sale and use of medical marijuana in Tucson.  To use it, a patient must have a medical marijuana identification card, but still no open dispensaries and card holders have had to pay two hundred fifty dollars a year to keep their card active.”

azdailysun.com:  “It’s been a year since David Grandon opened the nonprofit Grassroots Medical Center on Switzer Canyon Road to provide medical services and a marijuana exchange for card-holding patients.  He had high hopes then that he would eventually transition his operation into a full-blown medical marijuana dispensary. Grandon is a well-known Flagstaff artist who is currently working on a large mural at the Flagstaff Arts and Leadership Academy.  Those hopes were dashed in early August, when the medical marijuana dispensary permit was awarded to someone else in the state lottery amid accusations of rule violations.”

Arizona Republic:  “Arizona pediatricians are concerned that the state’s medical-marijuana law is being used to treat the ailments of pregnant women, potentially harming fetuses.  Members of the Arizona chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics want to stop the practice and point to one incident in which a mother in labor told hospital officials that she had received a medical-marijuana card during pregnancy and had been using the drug.”

The Atlantic:  “The marijuana reform movement made history this week, when voters in Colorado and Washington passed ballot initiatives legalizing the possession and sale of cannabis for purely recreational use. . . . The new laws would treat marijuana much like alcohol and tobacco, setting the stage for a large scale, tightly regulated, and generously taxed commercial industry worth some untold millions of dollars. Simply put, these would be the most lax marijuana laws in the world — smack dab in the middle of the country that invented the modern drug war.  The big question now is: Will Obama let it happen?“

 The Arizona Department of Health Services issued its first annual report on the state of Arizona’s medical marijuana law.  The report is titled “Report to Arizona, Department of Health Services: First Annual Medical Marijuana Report A.R.S. §36-2809.”  Here are some statements made in the report:

During April 2011 to June 2012, ADHS received a total of 41,476 applications and approved approximately 98% of the applications (40,463). Out of the 40,463 approved applications, 33,060 (82%) were new applications and 3,689 (9%) were application for renewals. There were a total of 29,804 active cardholders, which included 28,977 qualifying patients and 827 caregivers.  Of the total qualifying patients, approximately 26% (n = 7,702) were female qualifying patients and of the total caregivers, 20% (n = 168) were female caregivers. During April 2011 to June 2012 slightly over 80% (n = 24,191) of the qualifying patients and caregivers (n = 701) were authorized to cultivate.

The majority of the qualifying patients (n = 22,357; 77%) had one debilitating medical condition with the remaining 23% reporting two or more conditions. Approximately 70% of the qualifying patients (n = 19,631) indicated “severe and chronic pain” as the only debilitating medical condition. Four-hundred seventy physicians provided certifications to 28,977 patients during this time period (a median value of two certifications per physician; however, 10 physicians certified 13,336 [~46%] of all patients).

From May 14 through May 25, 2012, ADHS accepted applications for non-profit medical marijuana dispensaries.

ADHS held a lottery on August 7, 2012, and a total of 98 registration certificates were allocated through this process.

During the time period for which the data have been analyzed provided in this report (April 14, 2011 through June 15, 2012), there were zero DA Registry Identification Cards issued.

Several lawsuits have been filed concerning the implementation of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act. A scanned copy of the complaint for each lawsuit is available on the ADHS
website. As of the date of this Annual Report, the current lawsuits include:

• Johanna Dispensaries v. ADHS: LC2012-000544
• Charise Voss Arfa v. ADHS: CV2012-014816
• Arizona Organix v. ADHS: CV2012-054733
• White Mountain Health Center v. ADHS: CV2012-053585
• Serenity v. ADHS: LC2011-000410
• Elements v. ADHS: CV2011-011288
• Compassion First v. Arizona: CV2011-011290
• Sobol v. Arizona: CV2011-053246
• Arizona v. 2811: CV2011-014508
• Arizona v. USA: 11-01072

Medical Marijuana Fund Program Inception through FY 2012 4/14/2011 to 6/30/2012

Revenues:

Application fee for a Registry Card $5,525,277
Application fee for a Dispensary $2,420,000

Total Revenues $7,945,277

Expenditures:

Salaries, Wages and Benefits $570,972
Operating Expenditures $1,505,023
Capital Equipment Expenditures  $304,464

Total Expenditures $2,380,459

Fund Balance $5,564,818

Time:  “In April 2011, former Mexican President Vicente Fox sat before an audience at the University of Colorado at Boulder and in his baritone voice and frank tone urged Americans to legalize marijuana. His thrust: it could help enervate Mexico’s violent drug cartels. ‘The drug consumer in the U.S. yields billions of dollars, money that goes back to Mexico to bribe police and money that buys guns,’ Fox said. ‘So when you question yourselves about what is going on in Mexico, it depends very much on what happens in this nation.’  At the time, many pundits warned that legalization was a nonstarter. But on Tuesday, voters in Colorado and Washington state did exactly what Fox called for: they approved landmark amendments to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana.”

New York Times:  “TUESDAY’S election was a victory for the marijuana lobby: Colorado and Washington State voted to legalize recreational use, while Massachusetts will now allow doctors to recommend it as medicine. It’s a movement around which many Democrats have coalesced. . . . But Democrats should think twice about becoming the party of pot. I’m a lifelong partisan Democrat, but I’ve also spent 25 years as a doctor treating drug abusers, and I know their games. They’re excellent con artists.”

New York Times:  ” nobody knows exactly how much the whole Mexico-U.S. marijuana trade is worth, with estimates ranging from $2 billion to $20 billion annually. But even if you believe the lowest numbers, legal marijuana would take billions of dollars a year away from organized crime. This would inflict more financial damage than soldiers or drug agents have managed in years and substantially weaken cartels. . . . It is also argued that Mexican gangsters have expanded to a portfolio of crimes that includes kidnapping, extortion, human smuggling and theft from oil pipelines. This is a terrifying truth. But this does not take away from the fact that the marijuana trade provides the crime groups with major resources. That they are committing crimes such as kidnapping, which have a horrific effect on innocent people, makes cutting off their financing all the more urgent. “

Oregon Live:  “The Human Collective, a medical marijuana dispensary shut down last month by Washington County authorities, is expected to reopen next week with the same membership fee and similar prices for marijuana.   The new establishment has one key distinction from its predecessor: It’s located in Multnomah County, widely perceived as a friendlier environment for medical marijuana retail outlets.”