Would-be patients hoping to get some medical marijuana now that voters have approved the law should not hold their breath.
State Health Director Will Humble said Monday Proposition 203 gives his agency 120 days from the time the election results are certified — now set for Nov. 29 — to come up with the rules and regulations of how the system will operate.
Theoretically, he said, that should allow doctors to begin writing the legally required recommendations for patients in early April. But Humble said they may not have any place to purchase their drugs, at least not legally.
At the end of that 120 days, Humble said his agency has to start reviewing what he expects to be hundreds of applications by groups that want to operate one or more of the marijuana dispensaries around the state. And, by law, he’s currently allowed to give permits to only 125 of them.
Humble said he probably will screen each of the applications to check their plans for operations and security and award the licenses to only the most qualified. The alternative, he said, is a simple lottery process — something he does not favor.
Even that, however, doesn’t get the process started: He said each dispensary needs time to get up and running.
“And remember, they’ve got to get their cultivation facility up and running so they have an inventory that’s legitimate,’’ he said.
“I don’t want this to be inventory that comes off the street or from Mexico or something,’’ Humble said. “This has got to be from cultivation facilities inside the state.’’
He figures it could be sometime next summer, if not the fall of 2011, before the plants are legally grown, harvested and ready for sale.
But Andrew Myers, the campaign manager for Prop. 203, said patients may not have to wait that long. He said the measure allows those who are at least 25 miles from a state-regulated dispensary to do their own cultivation.
“Patients will be given I.D. cards before dispensaries will be licensed,’’ he said. “So, at the outset, the first batch of patients are all going to be able to grow, for a year, until their renewal comes up.’’
Humble, though, said he’s still researching that question.
More complex, he said, will be everything else to make the system work. Humble said there needs to be a secure computer system to track the drugs and the users.
On the front end, he said there needs to be an inventory system to ensure that everything that starts out as seeds in a legal cultivation facility winds up being sold through a legal dispensary, and only to a legitimate cardholder.
“That’s not as simple as it might sound on the surface,’’ he said.
“When they grow the plants, they weigh different amounts at different times,’’ Humble said.
“And there’s a drying period,’’ he continued. “So part of that weight was water weight.’’
He said dispensaries need round-the-clock access to the database of patients who have state-issued cards to verify that person is entitled to purchase marijuana. More to the point, the system will keep cardholders from buying more than 2 1/2 ounces every two weeks, the limit in the new law.
Finally, law enforcement needs the same access to determine whether the person they stopped is entitled to have that bag of marijuana.
Of greater concern, Humble said, is keeping some doctors from becoming the kind of “recommendation mills’’ he said have popped up in Colorado. The health director said he wants to spell out what sort of doctor-patient relationship has to exist before a physician can write such a recommendation.
“If we have a loose interpretation of what a doctor-patient relationship is ... then you could end up with situations like they have in Colorado where folks are walking into a doctor’s office for a 15-minute appointment and $150 bucks on the barrel head, they’re walking away with a recommendation,’’ Humble said.
At the very least, Humble said, he wants some assurance that doctors have discussed alternative to marijuana for their patients, particularly those who say they need the drug for “severe and chronic pain,’’ one of the conditions that lets a doctor write a recommendation. He said that should include biofeedback and acupuncture, where there is peer-reviewed evidence both actually work.
“Chronic pain is very difficult to measure,’’ Humble said, which is one reason he opposed the initiative in the first place. And that, he said, provides an opportunity for abuse.
In Colorado, he said, more than 90 percent of cardholders get them for chronic pain.
“The majority of those cardholders are guys in their 20s and 30s,’’ Humble said.
“I’m not saying none of them are in chronic pain,’’ he continued. But Humble said that condition becomes a “gateway’’ into Colorado’s system.
“I want to make sure we have some checks and balances in the system ... to make sure they are in a true doctor relationship, that they’ve truly evaluated that patient, that they truly think marijuana is the mechanism that they want to use for managing that patient, and they’ve talked with that patient about the various alternative treatments that they may have access to,’’ he said.
Water Boy posted at 4:05 pm on Mon, Nov 15, 2010.
Well it's about darned time. Why it's this hard to get a simple weed that has far less potential for harm than alcohol ot tobacco is beyond my ability to understand.
I smoked marijuana in college, got away from it when we decided to have kids, and now 42 years later will return to it for a REAL medical condition.
Happy days.[beam]
Rich posted at 5:46 pm on Mon, Nov 15, 2010.
How many times has it passed already? Teams of lawyers are working to scuttle this like all the other times it passed. Your masters don't want it. Chances are you won't get it.
Accuracy posted at 6:19 pm on Mon, Nov 15, 2010.
Medical marijuana wins over by a little over 4,000 votes - what now?
Rich's questuion: "How many times has it passed already?"
Arizona voters overwhelmingly approved a medical marijuana law in 1996 and 1998, but wording conflicted with federal law, blocking its enactment. And in 2002, Arizona voters rejected an initiative that would have decriminalized possession of up to two ounces of marijuana for any user.
Proposition 203’s passage makes Arizona the 15th state to have approved a medical marijuana law, to legalize pot for medical purposes.
Once state election officials certify the election results, the Arizona Department of Health Services has up to 120 days to set up regulations to handle the distribution of medical marijuana. Marijuana legalization in Arizona. In other words, allow essentially unregulated medical drugs on the market?
The California medical marijuana statute is causing problems in their states, where pot is not just for the sick. Hundreds of medical marijuana doctors, operating without official scrutiny, have helped make it available to nearly anyone who wants it.
nausds posted at 9:31 pm on Mon, Nov 15, 2010.
Accuracy: Lets just say your statement that hundreds of medical MJ doctors that are operating without official scrutiny have helped make it available to nearly anyone who wants it is true. Are you saying that those people who really wanted it prior to medical MJ being legalized couldn't get it? If you are going to be 'Accurate' then your answer would be no. And please tell me what problems all of these people are causing in California? How many people have died? How many auto accidents have occured due to someone being high on MJ? How many people have needed a new liver or a new lung or have gotten cancer? Oh wait, thats what happens when you smoke cigerettes and drink alcohol.
Now please tell me how much money has been raised from taxing it?
Legalize it, tax it and regulate it!!
madblogger posted at 11:33 pm on Mon, Nov 15, 2010.
Sweet Leaf Baby give me my card already. Got to fly baby !
cb_mesa posted at 5:36 am on Tue, Nov 16, 2010.
seriously, can we get a recount for governor? what was the final tally for Goddard anyway? I think it must have been a lot closer after counting all the ballots
evfan posted at 5:44 am on Tue, Nov 16, 2010.
What ever happened to freedom? Why legalize marijuana for medical purposes only. We just created another buracracy that we will end up paying for. More gov. jobs. I do not use drugs and do not advocate using them. I just do not think the gov. should be overseeing the distribution of them. This just creates a system where most people will lie to be able to do what they should be free to do anyway. As long as people do not infringe on others why do we all care. You cannot legislate morality. Weed smokers, druggies, perscription pill poppers, alchoholics, caffine addicts. What's the difference? You all have the same problem. Oh! don't forget about all the fat binge eaters with the 300lb nine year old kids either. Well those are my cynical comment's of truth.
VictorVito posted at 10:34 am on Tue, Nov 16, 2010.
It's been a long time coming! I want to sincerely thank those of you who took the time to support this issue and show up at the polls. It gives me renewed hope for the future of Arizona and it's citizens. "We the people" have once again stated very loudly our desire for legalized marijuana. For the third and final time we have said "shut up and sit down" to the various self-serving police, education and medical unions who have fought us tooth and nail for the last 30 years. It remains our final duty to make certain those bureaucrats, obstructionists and pharmaceutical pimps who opposed this legislation are "shown the door" and not allowed to delay or compromise the law of the land.
Poorman posted at 12:01 pm on Tue, Nov 16, 2010.
Don't use the stuff and never will,but one thing sure,if the powers that be have 120 days to get the law implemented, they will use every minute of it, in hopes someone can come up with an idea to stall it more,or get a court order or something to stop it altogether.
Accuracy posted at 5:00 pm on Tue, Nov 16, 2010.
Studies have shown that marijuana may cause psychosis, increase the risk of heart disease and provoke heart attack.
Researchers now tell us that marijuana may be toxic to the brain.
A study, led by Staci Ann Gruber of Harvard Medical School, was presented Nov. 15 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, California, found that teen marijuana use harms brain. The study found that, overall, habitual marijuana users appeared less able to maintain focus, did much worse on tests of executive brain function, and were more likely to make errors.
California voters passed a medical marijuana law 14 years ago. And concerning the matter of regulating the operation in California cities; according to Americans for Safe Access (a medical marijuana advocacy group), the majority of California cities do not allow (ban) medical marijuana dispensaries.
Marijuana Proposition 19 failed November 2, as the people of California rejected the passage of widespread pot legalization.
Duncan20903 posted at 1:24 am on Thu, Nov 18, 2010.
Wow, you really need to look at Colorado's statistics:
http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/hs/medicalmarijuana/statistics.html
The average age of a Colorado card holder is 40, 39 for men, 42 for women. I'm not sure where people get the notion that it's only young, healthy people are medical cannabis patients.
It's actually 94% that have chronic pain. But you might like to get out your calculator and add up the percentages for each reported condition. as it's a total of 137%.
Quote from the site linked above: "**Does not add to 100% as some patients report using medical marijuana for more than one debilitating medical condition."
While I'm 50 I certainly look healthy from the outside. But you don't need to be a board certified orthopedic surgeon to look at my x-ray and see how twisted my spine is. But you do need an x-ray machine. Just because chronic pain is the medical condition doesn't mean that the pain can't be diagnosed as real. No, we can't disprove someone who complains of chronic pain. Is it really valid to deny the patient who's pain is real because you don't want to issue medical cannabis to someone who is malingering? Is it really your belief that the malingering patient won't go buy pot from a black market vendor and get high anyway? Don't kid yourself that there is any shortage of cannabis in Arizona. You're a major transshipment point for the cartels and cannabis is widely available and some of the least expensive in the US. Perhaps if there were a realistic hope that those who are malingering you'd have a valid argument. But the malingering patient is already a cannabis user and knows where to buy it. Yes, recreational cannabis users prefer to buy from dispensaries, just like heroin addicts prefer to buy oxycodone at the local pharmacy. I wonder if you knew that SAMSHA reports that there are significantly less than 200,000 past month users of heroin in the US, practically the same number as in 1970, when the country's population was less than half of today's? This isn't any kind of achievement of the prohibition laws because the flatline is more than made up by oxycodone addicts. It's just a fact of life that even people who like to get high prefer to buy drugs that have been produced in certified labs with quality controls. The cartels are not going to be supplying Arizona patients with their low grade garbage, it just doesn't qualify as medical grade. There isn't a stick of cartel weed in any California dispensary. One of the benefits of the CUA is that the cartels probably have the lowest market penetration at least on a per capita basis if not nominally. "Mexican" or "cartel weed" is a denigration in California. Even the cannabis the cartelks grow in the National Forests of California is almost all shipped to other states. They just can't compete with the Northern California hippies.
Yes indeed California is overrun with quack doctors that write recommendations for all comers. This is not the fault of the Compassionate Use Act, the fault lies squarely with the Medical Board of California which allows these quacks to operate. No, they can't be disciplined for writing recommendations but they sure as heck can be disciplined for not providing the standard of care required by doctors. Both Colorado and Montana's Medical Regulators are actively going after the quacks that are trying to set up shop in those states. Colorado has recently tossed more than 2000 applications which were submitted with recommendations from quacks that they have barred from writing recommendations.
California's CUA doesn't require patient registry and allows recommendations for what amounts to "whatever ails you" California quacks don't even state the condition which they are recommending cannabis, and I wish I could scoff at the thought that some quack issued a recommendation to either a woman or a transvestite for pain caused by wearing high heels which is a story the detractors of medical cannabis love to tell. Unfortunately, under the CUA this would be a valid condition, and had you ever met a California quack that runs a recommendation mill you'd think it likely, and also likely feel a need to take a shower because you were in the same room as the "doctor". I know I did, and I was getting my renewal. They are also very convenient. Regardless, California's deficiencies have a lot to do with their being first, and there are a lot of qualifications in Prop 203 that are the direct result of seeing how things worked, or didn't as the case may be. Unfortunately California is stuck with the CUA as it takes another citizen generated ballot initiative to modify or overturn a citizen generated ballot initiative. It cost $1.5 million to get Prop 19 on this years California ballot. Indeed, within the next couple of years there is no doubt that there is going to be significant increase in the worldwide use of cannabinoid medicine and that it will be mainstreamed. In 10 years there won't be a legitimate patient getting cannabis in a dispensary or cultivating their medicine. Bayer Schering has a significant 8 very close to 9 figure investment in GW Pharmaceuticals who's entire existence is dedicated to the development of whole cannabis plant compounds and extracts to sell to patients with a doctor's Rx and are developing medical compounds as we speak, which have been approved in Canada, Germany Britain, and 25 other countries.
Otsuka Pharmaceutical has been chosen to distribute Sativex in the US and FDA approval is expected in 2011. There are currently 28 countries that allow prescriptions of Sativex.
The Boards of Pharmacy of Oregon and Iowa have moved cannabis to their state level schedule 2, which requires recognizing cannabis as a valid medicine. Iowa had to be sued and court ordered to consider the rescheduling. They did so this year with a unanimous 6-0 vote. Is it really unreasonable to infer from this 180 degree turnaround on the part of the Iowa BoP that the evidence that cannabis is valid medicine is overwhelming?
The countries of Canada, Holland and Israel acknowledge that cannabis is medicine. Sure, Holland everyone says, yeah Canada's liberal, but how about Israel? That's the only place in the world that patients get cannabis in the hospital when they need it. No, they don't smoke it, smoking isn't required. Vaporization has been proven safe in studies published in the journals where they publish peer reviewed studies. These studies were done by the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research which is funded by the state of California and administered by the University of California. In a twist of irony the CMCR was commissioned by those who wanted to prove that cannabis wasn't medicine. See the glowing recommendation for their work by John Walters, Mr George W Bush's head of the ONDCP and an adamant opponent of the mainstreaming of cannabinoid medicine.
Seriously I could go on all night but my neck hurts and I'm tired. I just wish people would worry more about the legitimate patients and the truth than about those who want to divert medical cannabis to recreational use. It's going to happen. It happens with oxycodone, it happens with Desoxyn (that's meth), it happens with Adderall and every other medicine that has a potential recreational use. So let's be realistic and try to minimize the diversion and the ID cards issued to those who malinger. Minimized, and remember these people are going to go get high whether they get it from a dispensary or a drug dealer. A cancer patient puking his guts out or a quadriplegic with muscle spasms really don't have the luxury of hopping in the car and going to whatever shadowy places the black market cannabis vendors lurk.
Oh one more point about my chronic pain in the neck. Many will argue that there are alternative pharmaceuticals at the drug store for every condition that cannabis is used to treat. Well that's not 100% true but it is pretty darn close. My doctor would give me oxycodone if I didn't use cannabis. I can't function when I take it. it makes me totally wasted and I drool on myself. I can';t even fantasize about going to work, I can't drive after taking it which is true with either cannabis or oxy but when I wake up in the morning I'm still wasted and unable to drive, I sure wouldn't have written this screed if I had been using oxy tonight. I going to presume if I'm being senseless you haven't read this far or that you enjoy senseless rambling. The really maddening thing is that it's not the THC where the medicine is for almost every condition which cannabis has been shown effective. That's why marinol doesn't work, and that stuff makes you hallucinate. Good lord I want pain relief not an LSD substitute. There really are a lot of us who want and need pain relief, and we don't want to drool on ourselves from oxy or trip like Timothy Leary. We'd actually probably rather you took the THC out of it altogether. That's only good for the nausea and cachexia patients as far as I know. I want CBD, not THC. CBD doesn't get you high. Why in the world is anyone against that?
rrffcc1 posted at 8:56 am on Sun, Nov 28, 2010.
Don't anyone hold their breath. Several early commenters are correct - it's been scuttled before.
Too much $$ is made by too many lawyers and legislators keeping it illegal.
And - final death knell - it's 'way too LIberal to survive in the current political climate. It doesn't matter what the People want...the People don't get a vote.