MATFORCE TO HELP PLAN MEDICAL MARIJUANA REGULATIONS

COTTONWOOD -Yavapai County's substance abuse coalition, MATForce, is
gathering together an ad-hoc committee Wednesday in response to the
November passage of Proposition 203, the Medical Marijuana initiative.

The invited gathering at noon at the Cottonwood Police Department is
billed as and opportunity to "help generate ideas to formulate policy,
rules and legislation designed to provide access by the seriously ill
to medical marijuana while maintaining quality of life throughout
Arizona and protecting the rights of landlords, tenants, employers and
citizens."

A similar meeting will be held Dec. 15 at the Yavapai Regional Medical
Center in Prescott.

Ideas will be compiled, including possible rules and regulations, to
present to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Under the initiative, approved by voters, the ADHS will administer the
program.

It is estimated that patients with a recommendation from a health care
professional and who have been issued a card by the Department of
Health Services will be able to acquire medical marijuana from a
dispensary in April. Each person would be permitted to purchase up to
2 = ounces of marijuana every two weeks.

One dispensary will be permitted for each 10 pharmacies. Cardholders
who live outside 25 miles from a dispensary will be permitted to grow
their own.

Cottonwood and other municipalities have already begun to determine in
what zoning such a dispensary would be permitted.