Until recently, I didn't even know how to spell "marijuana" but even I was aware that many AZ aging winter visitors already use marijuana for medical reasons - with or without a prescription.Now, Quartzsite medical card holders need not fear Police Chief Jeff Gilbert and a felony arrest
.By about 4,300 votes, Arizonan's have decided the future of this alternative therapy.This is NOT close enough for a recount. Arizona becomes the 15th state to legalize medical marijuana.
| Proposition 203 (Medical Marijuana) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Result | Votes | Percentage | ||
 a Yes | 835,735 | 50.13% | ||
| No | 831,314 | 49.87% | ||
| Total votes | 1,667,049 | 100.00% | ||
| Voter turnout | 55.28% | |||
Results via the Arizona Secretary of State as of November 12.
Arizona's law is very different from California's.The law only allows 120 dispensaries for the entire state, and those have to be equally distributed amongst all the population centers in the state.If you are 25 miles away from the closest dispensary you can get a permit to grow your own, as long as you meet the requirement of a doctor’s prescription.You will not be allowed to smoke in public or drive after smoking. Andrew Myers, campaign manager for the pro-Prop. 203 Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy Project, said Prop. 203 was written to create a strict and regulated medical-marijuana program.
In anticipation of the legalization of cannabis for medical use, The League of Arizona Cities and Towns had drafted a model ordinance so we won't have to pay our idiot (wills, trusts and estates)Town Attorney Pam Walsma $300/hour to draft one. According to the League
| "The ballot initiative gives cities and towns the ability to "...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..." (municipal zoning). |
| Applicants for medical marijuana dispensaries must apply to the state Department of Health Services for a permit and must certify that their dispensary location is in compliance with local ordinances; there is a limit of 120 dispensaries statewide. However, if your city or town has not adopted zoning regulations for medical marijuana facilities, neither the city nor DHS could restrict its location. |
| The model ordinance is intended only as a guideline; consult your city or town attorney for legal advice. |
According to a CH 12 news report: "The general-election canvass will be held Nov. 29. The Arizona Department of Health Services has 120 days from that day to finalize all rules for implementation. The department is expected to begin reviewing dispensary and patient applications by April 2011."
In neighboring California, medical marijuana is the number one cash crop.According to a poll commissioned by the Sacramento Bee news paper: "More than 400,000 Californians use marijuana daily, according to the state Board of Equalization. And state residents consume 16 million ounces of weed a year, from legal and illegal sources. And, 47 percent of registered voters said they have used marijuana at least once in their life. That exceeds the registration of any political party in the state."
In neighboring California, medical marijuana is the number one cash crop.According to a poll commissioned by the Sacramento Bee news paper: "More than 400,000 Californians use marijuana daily, according to the state Board of Equalization. And state residents consume 16 million ounces of weed a year, from legal and illegal sources. And, 47 percent of registered voters said they have used marijuana at least once in their life. That exceeds the registration of any political party in the state."
The Los Angeles Times reported Marijuana is the most popular illegal drug in the United States. Seventy years of criminal prohibition, "Just Say No" sloganeering and a federal drug war that now incarcerates 225,000 people a year have not diminished the availability or use of — or apparently the craving for — cannabis. And helping meet the demand is California, the nation's top grower. Marijuana production here results in an estimated $14 billion in sales, and its cultivation and distribution are now tightly woven into the state's economy. It is grown in homes, in backyards and even in national parks, including Yosemite.
Marijuana is popular, plentiful and lucrative, costing about $400 a pound to grow and yielding $6,000 a pound on the street. So it is perhaps inevitable that an attempt would be made to legalize it, as failed CA Proposition 19 attempted to do. The act would have authorize possession of one ounce of marijuana for personal consumption by people 21 and older, permit marijuana use in private residences or public places licensed for on-site consumption, and allow marijuana cultivation in private residences for personal use.
http://arizonamarijuanalaw.com/marijuana-laws/ reports that "Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers an estimated $10 billion annually and results in the arrest of more than 829,000 individuals per year — far more than the total number of arrestees for all violent crimes combined, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault."
According to the U. S. Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center "No reliable estimates are available regarding the amount of domestically cultivated or processed marijuana. The amount of marijuana available in the United States--including marijuana produced both domestically and internationally--is unknown. Moreover, estimates as to the extent of domestic cannabis cultivation are not feasible because of significant variability in or nonexistence of data regarding the number of cannabis plants not eradicated during eradication seasons, cannabis eradication effectiveness, and plant-yield estimates."
A recent article claims that more than 3.4 million Californians smoked pot in 2008, according to the latest research by the National Survey on Drug Abuse and Health.Further, it states: "Historically, marijuana use in California remains lower than during peak years of the late 1970s. But voters' approval of Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act – which made the state the first to legalize medical marijuana – is changing the social dynamic, according to poll results and interviews with users in 15 counties.
1. Controls nausea (benefit for chemo patients)
2. Controls weight loss (benefit for anorexic patients, AIDS patients, & Cancer patients
3. Reduces pressure in the eyes (benefit for those with Glaucoma, present medication loses its effectiveness after a short treatment period)
4. Reduces tremors (Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, ALS)
5. Reduces muscle spasms (Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, ALS)
6. Reduces pain (Cancer patients, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, ALS, Neurological issues, Migraines,) Has an analgesic effect that seems to work as well as codeine and enhances the effect of other pain medication
7. May protect nerves from damage (MS)
8. Can control dosage, quick response to smoking
9. Only 3% addiction problem
10. May cure cancer
For an in depth analysis of the marijuana debate, check out:
Marijuana & Money A CNBC Special Report
Posts
The Marijuana Conspiracy: The reason hemp is illegal
ReplyDeleteThey say marijuana is dangerous. Pot is not harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does not pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the truth from the people.The truth is, if marijuana was utilized for its vast array of commercial products, it would create an industrial atomic bomb! The super rich have conspired to spread misinformation about the plant that, if used properly, would ruin their companies.
3) Refusing to grow hemp in America during the 17th and 18th centuries was against the law! You could be jailed in Virginia for refusing to grow hemp from 1763 to 1769 (G. M. Herdon. Hemp in Colonial Virginia).
4) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers grew hemp. (Washington and Jefferson Diaries. Jefferson smuggled hemp seeds from China to France then to America.)
8) The first Bibles, maps, charts, Betsy Ross’s flag, the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were made from hemp. (U.S. Government Archives.)
12) In 1916, the U.S. Government predicted that by the 1940s all paper would come from hemp and that no more trees need to be cut down. Government studies report that 1 acre of hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees. Plans were in the works to implement such programs. (U.S. Department of Agriculture Archives.)
14) Henry Ford’s first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the car itself was constructed from hemp! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, ‘grown from the soil,’ had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel. (Popular Mechanics, 1941.)
CONTINUED :
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/07/marijuana-conspiracy-reason-hemp-is.html
Zani
Oh don't get too excited, there will be arrests. We all know too well how stupid people do stupid things. Like drive after smoking weed, giving some to family an friends. I hope AZ taxes the crap up the you know what.
ReplyDeleteYes, "Anonymous" from Lake Havasu, there are no limits to human stupidity. Our current councilpersons and police chief are proof positive of that! I doubt that this law will have much impact on how many drivers will be stoned on the road though, as people stupid enough to do it are already doing it and stringent drunk driving laws have failed to eradicate that more prevalent threat. I for one am thrilled that the QPD and LPCS and DPS may now spend more time on the speed freaks and crack heads. Aren't they more likely to commit violent crimes like armed robbery to support their habit? Now Quartzsite need not worry about losing many winter visitors and their desperately needed revenue to nearby Blythe.
ReplyDeleteHow stupid people do stupid things.... like jeffy does every single day
ReplyDeleteWhile this may lose me some friends, support, or even respect of many of the people that I have know over the years, I must give my report as I see it. You will find it not flowery, constructed from any smoked filled room through rose-colored glasses. In fact it comes from first hand experiences and observations over 40 years.
ReplyDeleteToo many times the views reported by Doctors/Scientist are in direct relation to their use or non-use of the weed. It greatly depends on witch side of the fence you are sitting on. From my observations over the last 40 years it is not a benign friendly do all drug that cures every know problem to man as its supporters would have you believe. It is kind of like the Communist Manifesto. Sounds great on paper, but fails to work in real life!
With the passage of this so called Medical Marijuana here in Arizona we will see a slow migration of pot heads and the problems that they generate flow into our State that will end up costing more of our State Budget to take care of them and their children. Fare too many lives have been destroyed and/or affected by this gateway drug.
Sadly, any good that this drug would do for those that have a terminal illness will be lost in the flagrant miss-use/prescription for profit. If there is a buck in it you will find a Doctor that will write your prescription for just a hangnail. The side effects alone are a good argument to keep it off the market. IMHO, the only reason we have such a problem with Marijuana today is because we have not yet gone to war to stop it! Too many in power have been bought off…
Marijuana is nothing more that an “Escape” drug that in many ways is more dangerous than alcohol. Allowing this drugs use in Arizona will only lead to more problems and a tax burden upon the non-marijuana users that will be the real victims. Punished for following the laws of the land by those that chose to escape their responsibilities in life.
If you don’t think that this will become a fact track drug to our children, guess again. I have seen where this was made legal by State Law only come back to punish the children. I have seen this first hand and marijuana destroyed their lives and any chance of a gainful future. Now ad the people that will now be driving under the influence of marijuana and the deaths that will be cause because of impaired reflexes.
Not me, not my children!
Dude, your fucking stupid Ive been smoking weed for 4 years and not once have I got hurt ANYONE or shirked off my responsibility's as a student or a citizen. You give me a single good reason that pot is more dangerous than a substance that kills over 75,000 people in the USA alone a year, and that is JUST that people influenced by it not the people that get hurt/killed by the people influenced by alcohol. In all of recorded history not a single death has EVER been cause by pot. As a matter of fact something as common and "harmless" as Aspirin kills more people that take the recommended dosage every day, than as stated before pot in recorded history. Why don't you try to actually fucking look at facts rather then throw some fancy fucking made up shit onto the screen. Don't be a fucking robot to the shit the government and the new society is force feeding our minds sense we first enter school, learn for yourself!
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is " Life's a bitch and then you die, so Fuck the world, Lets get high ! "
ReplyDeleteHey guys - let's watch the "F" word on this blog. The new rules are up today at:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.azdhs.gov/prop203/documents/Medical_Marijuana_Final_Rules.pdf