Arizona has legalized medical marijuana, joining fifteen other states across the country that allow marijuana use for health purposes. A system of cultivation and dispensaries will be operative by late summer 2011, with all plants grown in-state. 125 dispensaries are allowed in the new law, and dispensaries must be located at least 500 feet from schools. Only chronic conditions like cancer, HIV/AIDS, and glaucoma will be initially open for prescriptions, though this can change through public petition. Law enforcement in the state has been almost unanimously against the measure, which is no surprise, even if it is a badly misguided position.
The state health department worries how they will pay for the initial program set-up which could cost as much as $800,000. I suppose they will be able to recoup the costs through taxes and licensing fees and so-forth, but I wonder also where the money will come from initially. The state is strapped for cash. Nevertheless, I’m counting this as good news both in the war on drugs and for people who will benefit from a safe, legal way to obtain marijuana for medical purposes.
Duwamps
Legalize it, regulate it, tax it, then let anyone who wants it pay for themselves. The high cost primarily comes from prohibition.
John Cole
I’d suggest a fundraiser, but knowing the fascists in Arizona, Arpaio would probably track who has given money and raid their houses.
Poopyman
Is this going to be covered by any health care plan? I can’t imagine any insurance company reimbursing their -potheads-customers for weed, despite it being (to me) a no-brainer.
That’s where the post-startup funding should come from, but I’m not optimistic.
Annelid Gustator
From drugs-related asset forfeiture cases, is the nasty answer.
Zifnab
Did this pass by legislature or by ballot proposition? I can’t believe the Republican dominated state legislature would let this slide through.
suzanne
Passing this proposition was the sole bright spot in an otherwise shitty election for us Arizonans. We’re all gonna need medical marijuana to deal with the pain of the next four years.
suzanne
@Zifnab: Proposition. And it was the only proposition on our ballot that was actually written by voters. ‘Cause our Legislature sucks balls.
And it’s gonna suck even more next go-round: Russell Pearce, the bigot who started the SB1070 shitstorm, is the new President of the State Senate.
Blargh.
Punchy
Wow. Legalize the very drug that is tearing apart your southern neighbor. I suspect there’s more than a few Mexy mary jane kingpins who are sporting uncontrollable hard-ons right now.
Lowkey
@John Cole: Yeah, and I’m sure he’d misspend another $80M in public funds throwing relieved cancer-survivors in the clink. The pink underwear would take on a whole new significance.
kindness
They could fund it by having Sheriff Joe sit in a dunk tank filled with ravenous sharks (with lasers on their heads).
I’d happily pay $20 to toss him in the drink.
Zifnab
@suzanne:
Yikes. That is going to suck balls.
El Cruzado
@Punchy: Or maybe not. Remember, if trading marijuana is a crime, only criminals will trade marijuana.
Roger Moore
$800,000 shouldn’t be that big a barrier. You should be able to raise that much with some kind of conventional fundraiser. Enough of the people who voted for the proposition are going to be committed enough to be willing to give serious money getting the program off the ground. Heck, they probably spent a lot more than that on campaign spending getting the proposition passed. Just take the same fund raising team that paid for the ballot campaign and go back to the well one more time for setup money.
Jack
Arizona voters: No brown people! Yes, to drugs (with names we appropriated from brown people languages) raised by the brown people kept in poverty and persistent degradation by racist laws, and “free market” agreements!
Middle class values, in a nut shell.
seeker6079
There’s been a fair amount of debate of late here at Balloon Juice on the pros and cons of economic libertarianism. IMHO a story which says, in effect, “government is going to grow, sell primo weed, worries about not making a profit” is a pretty argument that the libertarians are right in their belief that the government isn’t to be trusted with even the easiest market tasks. ;)
Trevor B
@Punchy:So you are saying that some how the drug traffickers in Mexico will support this new law even though their business model comes from marijuana (actually other drugs really) being illegal to grow within the US. As this law provides for a legal means of growing marijuana within the state, how do you expect them to make money off of medical marijuana users? I am trying to see how they could possibly benefit from this law passing
scarshapedstar
So now a Mexican drug lord can sneak across the border, sign up for the non-citizens-only Welfare For Life program (multiple times of course so that they can buy 8 El Camino’s and eat T-bone steak tacos), enroll their kids at Harvard on your dime (they’re not allowed to turn down non-white students) and if that wasn’t bad enough, the American government is going to buy the weed that they smuggled in using 18-wheelers on the NAFTA Superhighway.
I BET THEY’LL PAY FOR THE WEED WITH AMEROS!!11
paradox
A few observations from a California nausea patient where the evil weed was made legal for sick fux like me years ago:
It’s very good the proposition mandates a certain number of shops and no more. We left this wide open and in some spots the applications exploded; in Los Angeles jiggly-titty girls were holding up signs for shop cards by bona-fide MD’s right on major boulevards. It was messy to get it all sort of reigned in.
Bassackwards buttfuck motherfucker law enforcement types (I’m the kind of guy who shortly waves at cops) will bust some clubs and folks in the beginning, not many, but a few. Then after 12-24 months that stops.
Many folks like me stay with their people. I will not enter a database for bonging chem dog, I just won’t. Not in our times.
Although total legalization is a long, long way off, I will say the green has become much more widely accepted since medical leaglization. In the SF Giants world series parade, for instance, one player remarked at the victory mike that Prop 19 musta passed, there was so much reef in the breeze. I also saw first-hand accounts on twitters the Giants fans passed out beers and joints to commuters on the way home, fogging many BART trains.
It is good news. Thank you, I needed it. You are a very good man and blogger, mistermix, if I don’t get the chance before next week, well, have a wonderful turkey day. Full of friends and love and pigging out. Please, amigo.
browser
Dispensary applications netted Colorado almost $7.5 million. Doesn’t seem like Arizona will have any problem.
Cermet
It is beyound belief that any Cop today could be against legalized weed (for medical use; there is a very small point for not allowing general use for health reasons but tobacco is far, far worse, so that makes no sense)- are they such stupid, racist or just jacket-boot thugs that they have their head up their ass? This excludes any police who read BJ since you have proven that you are smart – but your reasons (for or against) might help.
Larry Signor
Who woulda thunk it. Maybe the peeps in AZ are taking a shitty rap for their accidental governor. Maybe this is just some more anti-government shit that, ironically, creates more government and regulation. Or maybe as Jack (#14) says, this is an example of white privilege. ‘Sok for white meds but not if brown people grow it and profit. Or maybe it is just what it is, a bunch of stoners voting for something we care about.
Butch
Colorado’s had medical marijuana for a couple of years and it’s become a handy tax base for the communities that allow the dispensaries. There was a ballot issue last month in my very red rural county (Park County) that would have banned opening any more dispensaries and it lost. One strange side benefit; state law requires dispensaries to grow a certain percentage of the weed they sell. There had been a serious glut of warehouse space in Denver, and now it’s getting snapped up for the “greenhouses.” I don’t remember the exact dollar figures but it’s been a boon to the warehouse owners who lease the space, as well as to the greenhouse designers, construction trades, real estate, and a lot of related fields because the conditions needed to grow the medical stuff are exacting and it can cost upwards of $100,000 to renovate a warehouse so it’s suitable.
DMcK
@seeker6079: Reminds me of conversation I had recently with a conservative/libertarian/Tea Partier pothead friend of mine. He told me in no uncertain terms that he is against the legalization of weed, and that he would much rather break the law and risk incarceration to obtain it. “What on earth for?” I asked.
“BECAUSE I DON’T WANT THE GOVERNMENT ALL UP IN MY BUSINESS!”
True story!
KCinDC
Not just states: We in DC voted for medical marijuana in 1998, but Congress blocked us from spending our local funds on it until finally the restrictions were removed last year. Now that Republicans have taken the House, we’ll no doubt be entering a new era of congressional attempts to roll back our laws on medical marijuana, marriage equality, AIDS prevention (needle exchange), abortion, guns, and other topics. And we still have no vote in the Congress that loves to meddle.
Somehow I doubt the Tea Party’s concern with “Don’t Tread on Me” will extend to not treading on DC residents.
Cliff
This is one of the few blogs I can post a link to and or tell people to google “granny storm crow list 2010” and have my post published.
….evil eye directed @ http://www.samefacts.com/ …
anyhow here is a list of studies supporting medical use:
https://www.greenpassion.org/index.php?/topic/23575-new-420-page-grannys-mmj-list-july-2010/
suzanne
I posted this yesterday, but it’s just another example of how much Arizona sucks.
So sad for the puppeh and her family. :(
WyldPirate
@seeker6079:
There was, at one time about a dozen people who were approved by the federal government to receive medical MJ for various and sundry medical reasons. They Feds stopped the “approval and kept the handful of people “grandfathered’ in.
Their herb is grown at a Fed lab located at the Univ. of Mississippi. IT is reportedly of very poor quality in comparison to high-grade sinsemilla that is commonly available today.
Jewish Steel
So stoned children won’t have to cross major thoroughfares.
aimai
@DMcK:
That’s a thing of beauty. Really. Its unclassifiable in its perfect stupidity.
aimai
RalfW
How about taking the $800,000 from Arpaio’s massive slush fund?
RalfW
@Butch: The thought of using carbon-based electricity to grow pot in indoor warehouses in Colorado is a bit frustrating. Obviously it would be a bad thing for med marijuana to come from latin crime syndicates, but is the solution to grow hydro-indoor-under-lights?
RalfW
Shoot, didn’t get the 4:20 time stamp on that last one. Not that it matters, I’ve been sober 8 years…
geemoney
@Jewish Steel: You beat me to it.
125 dispensaries are allowed in the new law, and dispensaries must be located at least 500 feet from schools.
That’s some nice phrasing, there. You gotta start ’em early if you want them as lifelong customers. They’re cultivating the future tax base.
Just Some Fuckhead
Can hemp ropes be used for medically-assisted suicides?
paradox
Sorry, Kain, I thought mistermix had wrote this.
E.D. Kain
@John Cole: Yes. If anyone could benefit from a doobie, it’s Mr. Arpaio.
E.D. Kain
@paradox: Not to worry. I could be confused with worse.
E.D. Kain
@suzanne: I disagree. There were other bright spots. Hunting as a constitutional right was voted down; money was protected for children’s education and healthcare. There are more. Just mostly crappy elected officials AGAIN who will then try to steal all that money AGAIN and voters will stop them and then elect them AGAIN. It’s bloody madness.