Arizona Republic:  “Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, like county attorneys across Arizona, is no fan of the state’s medical-marijuana program. . . . But that doesn’t excuse the saber rattling he engaged in last week.”

For more on Montgomery’s threats read “Maricopa County Attorney Warns Everybody in Maricopa County Not to Grow, Sell or Distribute Marijuana Because He Will Prosecute Violators for Felonies.”

Arizona Republic columnist E. J. Montini wrote a column in which he rips Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery because they are ” two men doing everything they can to keep the state from fully implementing the medical-marijuana law that — for a third time — was approved by voters.”  Montini also said that the two “must think of Ryan Hurley as the boogeyman.”

Ryan Hurley is an Arizona attorney who is the media’s go-to-guy when they need a quote about Arizona’s medical marijuana law because he and his law firm represent a lot of applicants for medical marijuana dispensary licenses.  Montini wrote that Ryan Hurley told Montini that “His (Montgomery’s) press conference amounted to fear and intimidation rather than anything new. The county attorney enforces and prosecutes state law, not federal law. … So this sort of notion that he’s going to be out there arresting people under state law is just silly.”  Montini claims Hurley also said “even in California, where there is a lot of uncertainty, these notions that the sky is going to fall just don’t hold up.”

Even the most ardent supporters of Arizona’s medical marijuana law should acknowledge the prosecutors’ war on medical marijuana dispensaries that has been taking place in the last year.  For more on this war that the prosecutors are winning read:

• Court rulings bode ill for medicinal pot:  “the U.S. Justice Department said that federal courts in all four California judicial districts have rejected appeals by dispensaries threatened with shutdown.  The most recent rejection came this month, when a federal court in Oakland rejected appeals filed by the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax, the Medthrive Cooperative and the Divinity Tree Patients’ Wellness Cooperative in San Francisco, and Medthrive’s landlords. Similar appeals by dispensaries in Sacramento, Butte County and Los Angeles County were rejected earlier this year. . . . All told, approximately 400 dispensaries in California have closed since the four U.S. Attorneys began their coordinated crackdown in September”

• Federal Dispensary Attacks

• L.A. City Council Bans Medical Marijuana Dispensaries – “Under the ban, all of the 762 dispensaries registered in the city will be sent letters ordering them to shut down immediately.”

• California News

Looking at the facts some people would say that the sky has actually fallen on the California medical marijuana industry.  Hopefully Mr. Hurley and other attorneys who represent people involved in the soon-to-be operating Arizona medical marijuana dispensary have had their clients sign a good CYA letter that notifies the clients that their activities could cause them to be prosecuted and convicted of violations of federal criminal laws and that they could be imprisoned.

The Bugle: “Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a waiver that will allow Attorney General Tom Horne to try to close down the marijuana dispensaries that her state health department is in the process of licensing.  The move comes in the wake of Horne’s formal legal opinion that the state cannot legally permit anyone to sell marijuana, even only to those who have a doctor’s recommendation to use the drug. Horne said as long as the drug remains illegal under federal law, the state is powerless to authorize anything to the contrary. . . . Horne said he intends to legally intervene in a legal fight between Maricopa County and the owner of a clinic that wants to open a marijuana dispensary in Sun City.”

Phoenix New Times:  “Arizona should not authorize medical-marijuana dispensaries as voters intended because they would violate federal law, says state Attorney General Tom Horne. . . . Now, the question of whether Arizona gets dispensaries like Colorado is apparently in the hands of state judge who just doesn’t know it yet.”