Arizona has one of toughest marijuana laws in the United States. The likelihood that Arizona will be any easier on enforcing the use of medicinal marijuana even if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of marijuana for the chronically ill is slim. The federal ban on pot is not going to make it any easier for using the drug within the states with medicinal marijuana laws. Arizona’s Medical Marijuana Law, Prop 203, passed by a very slim margin of less than 4,500 votes and there are many questions being asked about the law.
What the Law Says
The amount of marijuana that can be possessed by a patient or the caregiver of the patient is 2.5 ounces. There are certain qualifying medical conditions authorize the use of medicinal marijuana:
- Cancer
- Glaucoma
- HIV/AIDS
- ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease)
- Hepatitis C
- Chiron’s Disease
- Alzheimer’s Disease
There are other medical conditions that may also qualify such as severe or chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures such as epilepsy and severe spasms such as those seen in multiple sclerosis. A general “wasting away” in a patient with a chronic illness may also be a condition qualifying the use of medicinal marijuana.
The guidelines for the patient or the patient caregiver are very specific and must be followed to the letter:
1. Caregivers must be 21 years old and pass a criminal background check that would disqualify them if certain felony convictions are found
2. Caregivers may not serve more than 5 patients at a time and must carry a card for each patient they serve and their reimbursable expenses do not include labor.
3. The medical marijuana card of the patient and caregiver must gives name, address, date of birth, a photo and whether or not they are authorized to grow marijuana plants. The cards are valid for one year and law enforcement must receive a statement from patient and caregiver that they will not “share” the marijuana with non-patients and must submit their fingerprints to law enforcement.
4. Sharing marijuana for free with other patients within the 2.5 ounce limitations is allowable but the marijuana may not be smoked on any form of public transportation or in a public place and driving under the influence is not allowed. Neither patients nor caregivers may possess marijuana on a school bus, at a school or in a correctional facility.
5. Patients and caregivers who live more than 25 miles from the non-profit marijuana dispensaries may grow their marijuana, but not more than 12 plants which must be in an “enclosed , locked facility”, defined as “closet, room, greenhouse, or other enclosed area”.
6. Non-profit dispensaries are allowed, they are charged a fee which ranges from 5k to 10k dollars for a renewable license and they may grow their own medicinal marijuana either at the dispensary site or offsite. The marijuana growing site must not be within 500 feet of a school. For every ten pharmacies their may only be one dispensary but each county may have a dispensary. Patients and caregivers may donate marijuana to a dispensary but not for compensation.
There are other guidelines that address visiting patients from other medical marijuana states, the physical characteristics and dispensing tracking mechanism of the dispensary, and law enforcement accessibility guidelines to databases are all in place. Other items such as discrimination for housing, employment and school, for non-patients being in the company of medicinal marijuana patients, for parental rights of medicinal marijuana patients and denial of medical treatment for medical marijuana patients have all been summarized and addressed in Arizona’s law. The medical marijuana patient’s use of the drug is to be viewed just as any other use of prescription drugs is viewed and the law is to be administered accordingly. Until the Drug Enforcement Administration changes it’s classification of marijuana as a harmful drug with no medical benefits writing a prescription is illegal. Doctors are hard-pressed to put their careers on the line and subject themselves to revocation of their certification to accommodate their patients with medical marijuana prescriptions. So even though voter initiatives have mandated adoption until the U. S. Supreme Court rules on the use of marijuana for the chronically ill things will not change for Arizona residents.