Arizona Gets New Medical Cannabis Law
In a contest even closer than California’s AG race,
Arizona’s Proposition 203 has passed by a razor-thin
margin of just 0.2%, making it the 15th state with
tangible protections for medical cannabis patients. This
is the third time Arizona voters have passed initiatives
aimed at removing criminal penalties for patients, but
the previous measures were marred by language that made
them unworkable.
Arizona’s new law is detailed in its provisions for
which patients are eligible for the program and how they
are to obtain the cannabis their doctors recommend.
Up to 124 dispensaries for medical cannabis, which will
be required to grow the medicine they distribute, are to
be established throughout the state, with at least one
in each county. Patients living within 25 miles of a
dispensary will be required to use it to obtain the up
to 2.5 ounces they are permitted to possess.
Those who live farther away will be allowed to cultivate
up to 12 plants in a secure area and share it with other
patients or dispensaries for free. Caregivers will be
limited to no more than 5 patients and can receive
reimbursement only for actual expenses, not labor or
other services.
Among the provisions that set Arizona apart from other
medical cannabis states is their recognition of
out-of-state patient recommendations. Anyone with a
doctor’s recommendation will be permitted to possess and
use cannabis, though they will not be allowed to
purchase it in the state’s dispensaries.
Arizona’s new law also includes explicit workplace and
housing protections for patients. Schools, landlords and
employers will not be able to discriminate against
medical cannabis users. No one will be entitled to drive
or report for work while impaired, but a positive drug
test will no longer be grounds for denying or
terminating employment for patients. Patients’ parental
rights will also be protected, and medical treatments
such as organ transplants can no longer be denied solely
because a person uses cannabis therapeutically.
While Arizona’s latest medical cannabis law seems to
have anticipated the legal stumbling blocks that
prevented previous measures from taking effect, the
state’s lawyers may be unable to help anyone navigate
the law. The ethics counsel for the State Bar of Arizona
has said that attorneys who provide advice on how to
comply with state provisions will be breaking an ethics
rule that prohibits them from assisting anyone with
criminal conduct. Since all use of cannabis remains
illegal under federal law, discussion of the state’s
medical law is out of bounds as far as the state bar is
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Medical Cannabis Advocates Claim Victory
 In
the closest statewide California contest in decades,
Democrat Kamala Harris appears to have narrowly defeated
Republican Steve Cooley to become the state’s next
Attorney General. Thanks in part to an aggressive
campaign by cannabis advocates targeting Cooley, Harris
won by the thinnest of margins, prevailing by only 0.8%,
or 72,883 votes out of more than 9.5 million cast.
Though he led in all the pre-election polling and even
claimed victory on Election Day, Cooley, who is the
longest-serving District Attorney in Los Angeles
history, conceded late last month. He drew the
opposition of Americans for Safe Access, the American
Cannabis Research Institute and other advocates after he
denounced all medical cannabis sales in the state as
illegal and attempted to undermine the regulatory
process for medical cannabis collectives in Los Angeles.
 "A defeat for Steve Cooley is a landmark victory for
patients," said ASA Executive Director Steph Sherer. "We
expect Kamala Harris to be an ally, but we have also
shown that medical cannabis advocates are a powerful
political force."
ASA targeted the Attorney General's race as the most
important in California for patients’ rights because the
position has enormous influence over the interpretation
and implementation of state law. Cooley has been a
staunch opponent of safe access for years, responsible
for dozens of paramilitary-style raids on local cannabis
dispensaries and the aggressive prosecution of local
patients and their providers. A long-time ally of the
California Narcotics Officers Association, he
participated in their trainings aimed at the
"eradication" of dispensaries.
ASA used a web site,
NotCooley.com, posters, and
other materials to mobilize grassroots activists and
educate the electorate on why Cooley would be bad for
medical cannabis, environmental protections and marriage
equality. The campaign showing why Cooley is "Not Cool"
for California on a variety of issues went viral in the
final weeks, with its biggest impact in the Los Angeles
area. Cooley was elected DA three times in the county
but lost to Harris by more than 14 points there, despite
$1 million worth of ads paid for by the Virginia-based
Republican State Leadership Committee, a group
controlled by Karl Rove and funded by tobacco, insurance
and gambling interests.
“This race and its unexpected outcome show there are
real political consequences for opposing safe access,”
said Sherer. “Elected officials will be held
accountable.”
Harris oversaw the writing of one of the first local
ordinances for dispensaries in the country, and she has
called for statewide regulatory standards for
dispensaries, something that could improve access for
patients in many areas of the state where local
officials have banned dispensaries.
As she takes office, Harris, who is currently the San
Francisco District Attorney, makes history several times
over. She will be the first female, the first African
American and the first Asian American to hold the
state’s third-ranking position.
Further information:
Campaign website used
to defeat Steve Cooley
NotCooley video on medical cannabis
NotCooley video on the environment
NotCooley video on marriage equality
NotCooley poster
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Congress Questions IRS but not DEA Nominee
Answers Sought on Audits, But Leonhart Gets a Pass
ASA has succeeded in convincing members of Congress to
question the IRS on tactics targeting medical cannabis
dispensaries. And while the nominee to head the DEA
escaped her confirmation hearing without having to
answer for medical cannabis raids, her opposition to
dispensing pain medication threatened to put her
nomination on hold.
ASA has alerted members of Congress to new ways federal
officials have found for harassing patients and
providers, now that the Department of Justice has said
federal resources could be better utilized than by
prosecuting state-qualified medical cannabis patients
and providers. The latest harassment tactic involves
selective IRS audits that have targeted the business
deductions of several of the California medical cannabis
dispensaries that serve the most patients.
 “Disallowing deductions for expenses associated with
providing medicine amounts to a special tax on cannabis
that only hurts patients,” said ASA Government Affairs
Director Caren Woodson. “Providers will have to
dramatically raise prices or close their doors; either
one puts patients back in harm’s way to obtain their
medicine.”
ASA has found an ally for patients in one of the
nation’s foremost advocates of tax reform, Congressman
Pete Stark (D-CA), who is now calling on the IRS to
allow state-legal cannabis dispensaries to take trade or
business deductions. Rep. Stark and a handful of
Congressional colleagues who also serve on oversight
committees such as Ways & Means, Joint Taxation,
Banking, and Judiciary have cosigned a letter requesting
that the IRS issue a revenue ruling – or similar
pronouncement upon which taxpayers may rely – concerning
deductions for medical cannabis dispensaries.
“These IRS audits are indirect attacks on state medical
cannabis programs,” said Woodson. “Congress has to
provide leadership because career bureaucrats can’t
bridge the divide between state and federal laws.”
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration is unlikely
to help resolve the impasse, now that a holdover from
the Bush Administration, Michelle Leonhart, has sailed
through confirmation hearings to head the agency without
facing questions about why the DEA has largely ignored
the Obama Administration’s policy on medical cannabis.
But Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin reportedly threatened to
block a vote on her nomination until the DEA loosens
restrictions on how pain medications are dispensed in
nursing homes. All indications are her nomination will
come to a vote this session, but if it does not,
President Obama would have to re-nominate her in the
next Congress.
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New Regulations Edge D.C. toward Safe Access
Local officials in Washington D.C. are
making progress on regulations for implementing the
medical cannabis initiative passed more than a decade
ago, but just now allowed to go into effect. ASA
Executive Director Steph Sherer, who lives in D.C., and
other ASA staff and advocates have been working with
officials to shape the new rules to reflect patient
needs, sometimes with more success than others.
A recent victory was the decision to abandon a plan for
putting the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration
(ABRA) in charge of the program. ASA had asked for a
production and distribution licensing board with
expertise on the issue, and the city listened, changing
to a four-member board appointed by the Mayor.
"We are eager to help the mayor establish a board made
up of carefully selected experts and patients," said
Caren Woodson, ASA’s Director of Government Affairs. "We
will also seek approval and implementation of sound
regulations as soon as humanly possible."
ASA supported other changes made to the recently
published regulations, including enhanced privacy
protections for patients and the adoption of a
merit-based licensing system for the production and
distribution of medical cannabis, rather than the
first-come, first-served approach in the initial
proposal. A points system will now be used to assess how
applicants will run their operations, favoring such
factors as environmental sustainability and local
ownership.
ASA and other patient advocates remain concerned about
other provisions in the proposed regulations, such as
the prohibition on personal cultivation, a right
explicitly defined in the original voter-approved
initiative.
"We've come a long way and have made significant
progress over the past few months," continued Woodson.
"Although the regulations aren't perfect, we're ready to
put this law into effect."
The first set of regulations – now abandoned --
established a surprisingly short list of qualified
medical conditions, limited to HIV/AIDS, cancer,
glaucoma, and multiple sclerosis. The initial
regulations also outlined a patient identification card
program, a possession limit of two ounces per patient in
a 30-day period, limited the number of production and
distribution facilities to ten and five respectively,
and established exorbitant licensing fees.
The District Council now has 30 business days to review
the revised regulations before sending them to the
Mayor.
Further information:
Second proposed rulemaking to implement the law
ASA's recommendations on proposed rules and regulations
Text of I-59, passed in 1998
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LA: A Win in the City, a Loss in the County
Medical
cannabis advocates convinced the city of Los Angeles to
allow more dispensaries even as supervisors for LA
county voted to close all of them in unincorporated
areas.
The LA City Council this month relaxed restrictions in
the city’s medical cannabis ordinance that would have
eliminated all but a few dozen of the roughly 500
dispensing collectives now operating. Rules about where
dispensing collectives can locate barred them from
operating near residential areas, schools, parks and
other “sensitive uses,” effectively eliminating almost
all neighborhoods. Additional rules about who could be
listed as operating the dispensaries threatened to close
all but 40 of the collectives currently operating in
this city of 5 million.
Councilman Paul Koretz told the media after the vote
that the original rules “unintentionally and erroneously
disqualified some dispensaries.” He said the changes the
council made will “reinstate some that I believe would
have been removed by mistake."
In addition to easing the restrictions on dispensary
management, the council also gave operators an
additional six months to come into compliance with the
new ordinance. Final approval of the new rules awaits a
vote by a quorum of 12 council members; only 11 were
present when the ordinance changes were approved.
 "This is a common sense improvement," said ASA’s
California director Don Duncan, who has worked closely
with the council. "It will help legal collectives stay
eligible to register and to abide by the rules, which I
think is the common goal shared by the council and the
community."
Meanwhile, Los Angeles County Supervisors reversed
course, voting 4-1 to ban medical cannabis collectives
in unincorporated areas of the county. The vote
overturned a 2006 ordinance regulating dispensaries.
Despite a history of support for safe access among a
majority of the board, press reports about a spate of
violence around dispensaries in the city, as well as
public outcry against un-permitted dispensaries opening
illegally in the county, convinced county supervisors to
institute the ban.
“This ban should be a wakeup call for patients and
advocates all over California,” said ASA’s Duncan. “Bad
press and negative public perception can roll back
hard-won progress on safe access, despite the facts.”
ASA’s research on the experience of California
communities over the last fourteen years reveals that
sensible regulations for medical cannabis distribution
reduce crime and complaints. Crime statistics show that
the presence of medical cannabis collectives can make
neighborhoods safer. Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie
Beck confirmed that in January, telling reporters that
banks attract more crime than cannabis dispensaries do. |
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