Arizona Capitol Times: “Proposition 203, Arizona’s medical marijuana law, will become effective soon. This new measure will change the way employers treat and interact with workers who qualify for protection under the statute. Employers should consider several important points in light of these significant developments.”
Arizona Republic: “It has come under scrutiny from the Drug Enforcement Administration and a host of state legislatures including Arizona’s, but the forces aligning against Spice and other synthetic drugs have done little to curb their popularity. The DEA announced plans last month to ban five of the chemicals commonly found in synthetic marijuana and gave store owners and consumers until Christmas Eve to dispose of any synthetic drugs that contain the chemicals.”
Arizona Republic: Arizona “School districts are discussing the best ways to incorporate medical marijuana into their substance-abuse policies and drug-abuse campaigns. Now that Arizona has become the 15th state to approve the use of medical marijuana, several district administrators say it will likely fall in the prescription-drug category, and any abuses will be handled the same as other prescription medications.”
Arizona Republic: “Zero tolerance of drug use is the workplace norm in Arizona, but the medical-marijuana law that takes effect next year will cloud what had been a clear-cut issue for workers and employers. If a supervisor suspects that using marijuana for medical reasons affects the quality of an employee’s work, how should the supervisor respond?”
Here are some interesting statements from Will Humble, the Director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, the agency that will oversee Arizona’s medical marijuana law.
On how DHS will determine which applicants get one of the 124 dispensary licenses:
“There are probably a number of ways to do it, but 3 come to mind right away. We could, for example:
- Use some kind of first-come first-served process and simply approve the first 124 complete dispensary applications;
- Place the complete applications in a pool and have some kind of random drawing on a particular date; or
- Evaluate the complete applications using some kind of objective criteria (such as the professional quality of their business model, security plan, customer validation and inventory system etc) and select the best applications from the stack for approval.
Method 3 is probably the best because we’d be able to select the best of the qualified applicants”
On the proposed implementation schedule:
“Implementing the Act will take at least 4 months… and we expect to be able to accept our first applications for medical marijuana (Cannabis) cards and dispensaries in early April, 2011. In the mean time, we’ll be developing the Administrative Code (Rules) for actually operating and regulating the program. Here is our schedule for Rule development:
December 17, 2010: ADHS posts an initial informal draft of the Rules.
December 17, 2010 – January 7, 2011: ADHS receives informal (electronic) public comment on the initial informal draft Rules.
January 31, 2011: ADHS posts official draft Rules for public comment.
January 31, 2011 – February 18, 2011: ADHS receive public comment on a revised draft of the Rules.
February 15 – 17, 2011: ADHS holds 3 public meetings about the draft Rules
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 – 1 pm, 250 N 17th Ave., Phoenix
Wednesday, February, 16, 2011 – 1 pm, 400 W. Congress, Room 222, Tucson
Thursday, February 17, 2011 – 1 pm, 250 N 17th Ave., Phoenix
March 28, 2011: ADHS publishes the final Rules that will be used to implement the Act.”
Arizona Republic: “With the passage of Proposition 203 legalizing marijuana for medical use, Peoria officials have prepared a draft policy in anticipation of requests to open a dispensary or a cultivation facility. The proposed ordinance places some guidelines and restrictions for operators and cultivators, including requirements to apply for a special city permit and maintain a specific distance from such places as schools, day care facilities and homes.”
The town of Oro Valley, Arizona, adopted its medical marijuana zoning ordinance of October 27, 2010.
Phoenix New Times: “In Arizona, you can ride a motorcycle without a helmet, conceal a handgun, and buy an AK-47. And soon, if you qualify, you’ll be able to smoke a big, fat doobie. Legally. . . . Arizona is on the verge of establishing a billion-dollar pot industry.”
Jon Gettman , Ph.D., wrote a scholarly paper called “Marijuana in Arizona, Arrests, Usage, and Related Data.” The article contains statistics and information about the criminal aspect of marijuana use in Arizona. It states:
“There were 21,727 arrests for marijuana offenses in Arizona in 2007, representing an arrest rate of 343 per 100,000, which ranks Arizona at number 16 in the nation. There were an estimated 473,000 past year marijuana users in Arizona during 2007. Reconciling this estimate with the number of arrests for marijuana offenses provides an arrest rate of 4,593 per 100,000 users, which ranks Arizona at number 14 in the nation.
In terms of overall severity of maximum sentences for marijuana possession, Arizona ranks number 12 in the nation (based on penalties for a first offense). When it comes to penalties for just under 1 ounce of marijuana, Arizona is ranked at number 2 . . .. Here are the penalties for possession of various amounts of marijuana in Arizona:”
Arizona Republic: “Southeast Valley cities are working hard to have a say in where the medical marijuana dispensaries are located. Without ordinances setting limits on their location, cities risk getting them placed wherever an approved applicant desires, officials say.”
Arizona Republic: Arizona Department of Health Services “officials said Monday that they will begin implementing the measure and expect the drug to be in use by late summer 2011. [ADHS] Director Will Humble said he expects that by April, the agency will begin reviewing applications from people who want to use medical marijuana or operate a dispensary. The program should be fully functioning by later that summer, when dispensaries have had time to grow the plants.”
“The department currently is considering several options to screen dispensary applications, such as accepting them on a first-come, first-served basis or creating a lottery system and drawing random applications. The ideal but most labor-intensive way to select dispensaries would be to evaluate the quality of their business models, security plans and inventory systems and then select the best 124 applications, Humble said.”
See the Channel 12 video that answers questions asked by viewers about the new law.
Read the text of the October 18, 2010, version of Globe’s proposed medical marijuana dispensary zoning ordinance. Here are the highlights:
The League of Arizona Cities & Towns drafted a sample medical marijuana dispensary zoning ordinance for Arizona cities. Arizona Proposition 203 authorizes cities to regulate the location and operation of medical marijuana dispensaries within their boundaries. The Proposition states that Arizona cities may “enact reasonable zoning regulations that limit the use of land for registered nonprofit medical marijuana dispensaries to specified areas in the manner provided in Title 9, Chapter 4, Article 6.1.
The East Valley Tribune has a question and answer session with Will Humble, Director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, about Arizona’s new medical marijuana law.
We have a lot of articles, stories and information about Arizona Proposition 203 on the KEYTLaw law blog for the period that ends on November 2, 2010, the day Arizona voters approved Proposition 203. To read our pre 11/2/10 articles, see the Medical Marijuana in Arizona topic area of the KEYTLaw Law Blog.
Marin Independent Journal: “the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had created a new trademark category for medical marijuana. But the patent office backpedaled last week and eliminated the category, . . . . The patent office is, however, continuing to accept pot-trademark applications. . . . DeAngelo doubts that anyone will ever succeed in trademarking a marijuana strain.”
If you want to know where the Drug Enforcement Agency stands on marijuana, including medical marijuana, read this July 2010 report from the DEA. What follows is from the opening paragraphs of the report.
THE DEA POSITION ON MARIJUANA
The campaign to legitimize what is called ―medical‖ marijuana is based on two propositions: first, that science views marijuana as medicine; and second, that the DEA targets sick and dying people using the drug. Neither proposition is true. Specifically, smoked marijuana has not withstood the rigors of science–it is not medicine, and it is not safe. Moreover, the DEA targets criminals engaged in the cultivation and trafficking of marijuana, not the sick and dying. This is true even in the 14 states that have approved the use of ―medical‖ marijuana.
On October 19, 2009 Attorney General Eric Holder announced formal guidelines for federal prosecutors in states that have enacted laws authorizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The guidelines, as set forth in a memorandum from Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden, makes clear that the focus of federal resources should not be on individuals whose actions are in compliance with existing state laws, and underscores that the Department will continue to prosecute people whose claims of compliance with state and local law conceal operations inconsistent with the terms, conditions, or purposes of the law. He also reiterated that the Department of Justice is committed to the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act in all states and that this guidance does not ―legalize‖ marijuana or provide for legal defense to a violation of federal law.2 While some people have interpreted these guidelines to mean that the federal government has relaxed its policy on ―medical‖ marijuana, this in fact is not the case. Investigations and prosecutions of violations of state and federal law will continue. These are the guidelines DEA has and will continue to follow.
THE FALLACY OF MARIJUANA FOR MEDICINAL USE
SMOKED MARIJUANA IS NOT MEDICINE
There is no sound scientific evidence that smoked marijuana can be used safely and effectively as medicine. Congress enacted laws against marijuana in 1970 based in part on its conclusion that marijuana has no scientifically proven medical value. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the federal agency responsible for approving drugs as safe and effective medicine based on valid scientific data. The FDA has not approved smoked marijuana for any condition or disease. The FDA noted that ―there is currently sound evidence that smoked marijuana is harmful, and ―that no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use.