Throughout my career I’ve learned that a cornerstone of working with the community is to make sure you have a true partnership. Every partnership starts with trust. In order to establish and maintain trust throughout our implementation period, the ADHS needs to ensure that our process is completely fair, open, honest and transparent. Part of [...]
The AZ Medical Marijuana Act states that cities and towns may adopt "reasonable regulations" regarding the location and operations of medical marijuana dispensaries and growing operations in their jurisdictions. The ADHS still has the responsibility to issue the dispensary license- but any license that we ultimately issue would be contingent on the prospective facility being [...]
I get this question a lot from folks. While Congress has determined that it’s illegal to distribute and sell marijuana, several states have passed laws authorizing the distribution and use of marijuana for medical purposes. Arizona will likely be the 15th state to do so if the election is certified today (November 29). So, in [...]
One thing that folks have mentioned on my blog over and over is concern about who will need to submit fingerprints as part of their application under the AZ Medical Marijuana Act. Here’s the short answer: All applicants except a qualifying patient will need to submit a full set of fingerprints before getting a card [...]
A couple of weeks ago I planned to open the docket to overhaul the Administrative Code (Rules) that we use to evaluate and monitor health and safety in licensed behavioral health facilities in AZ. That plan was based on the assumption that the Medical Marijuana Act was going down to defeat because at that time [...]
By now you probably know that Proposition 203, the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, appears to have passed after all (although the final determination will actually be made when the election is certified on November 29). The Act identifies ADHS as the organization that’s responsible for carrying out the provisions of the law. There will be several [...]
If Prop 203 passes today, we’ll definitely get flooded with phone calls from people that want information on how they can get a license to become a dispensary starting Wednesday. There’s absolutely no way we could ever try to answer the inevitable questions over the phone. Number 1, we won’t have full answers until at [...]
If Proposition 203 passes (the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act), one of our key decisions will be how to set up some kind of selection process for approving marijuana dispensary applications. The Act states that the number of Cannabis dispensaries will be limited to 10% of the number of pharmacies in the state. As of right [...]
Some of the most important words in the 13-page Arizona Medical Marijuana Act are: “Physician Patient Relationship” and “A Full Assessment of the Qualifying Patient’s Medical History”. The real gatekeepers that’ll determine which applicants ultimately would qualify for a medical marijuana card are Arizona MDs, DOs, Naturopaths and Homeopaths, as they evaluate their patient's medical [...]
Where would the inventory come from if Proposition 203 (the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act) passes? As near as I can tell… it could come from at least 3 places: enclosed cultivation facilities associated with dispensaries; enclosed cultivation facilities operated by caregivers on behalf of cardholders, if the people they care for live 25 miles from [...]
