LEGAL POT GROWING COMING

Potential medical marijuana users are just a few weeks away from being
able to legally grow their own pot in Arizona.

And it's likely that people who receive medical marijuana user cards
before October will be able to continue growing their own legal pot
for a year.

The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) released its final
draft rules Monday that implement the medical marijuana law voters
approved this past fall. The agency posted the rules, applications and
FAQs on its website Monday at www.azdhs.gov.

ADHS officials plan to start taking applications for medical marijuana
user cards on April 14. The agency then has 15 working days to process
the applications.

Meanwhile, the state won't start accepting medical marijuana
dispensary applications until June 1. ADHS Director Will Humble told
The Daily Courier that the dispensaries probably won't start opening
until early October.

That leaves medical marijuana users with only two options until
October: grow their own pot or appoint a caregiver to do it.

The law allows cardholders and caregivers to grow pot only if a
dispensary is not selling pot within 25 miles.

But anyone who gets a card before a dispensary exists within 25 miles
of their home probably will be able to continue growing their own pot
for a year, until they have to apply for a new annual card, Humble
said.

"The status quo is worse," said Andrew Myers, who led the Arizona
medical marijuana campaign and now helped start up the Arizona Medical
Marijuana Association to represent dispensaries and patients.

"The medical marijuana program is not going to increase demand," he
said. "All we're doing is taking patients away from the illegal drug
market."

Humble expects ADHS officials will be too busy inspecting new
dispensaries to track down cardholders who live within 25 miles of
dispensaries that were licensed after users got their cards.

Humble noted that the Legislature and governor cut the ADHS by 47
percent over the last three years.

Once the dispensaries come on line, the ADHS rules set up a system
that tries to spread dispensaries throughout the state.

While some homes still will be more than 25 miles from the nearest
dispensary, the rules will minimize their numbers, Humble said.

Vocal opponents of the medical marijuana law from the Prescott region
would have liked to see the rules force out more legal homegrown pot
growers, including Prescott psychiatrist Ed Gogek and MatForce, a
consortium of law enforcement and other agencies in the Prescott region.

An initial scan of the 92 pages of final rules indicates that the
rules also might incorrectly allow two commercial cultivation
facilities per dispensary, one on site and one off site, said Jack
Fields, a Yavapai County deputy attorney who works with MatForce.

MatForce reads the law to say that commercial cultivation facilities
not attached to dispensaries must have separate dispensary licenses,
Fields said.

Worst state ever?

Gogek is altogether unhappy with the final rules. The draft rules
included restrictions on the number of medical marijuana
recommendations one doctor could make, and required doctors to see
patients several times before recommending medical marijuana cards for
them. Those draft rules are removed from the final rules.

"Arizona now has the worst medical marijuana law in the nation," Gogek
concluded.

Myers disagrees.

"He's just being dogmatic for the sake of being dogmatic," Myers said
of Gogek.

"Overall, I think it's a good package," Myers said of the final rules.
"Patients are treated very fairly."

While the rules limit the number of dispensaries, they don't limit the
number of cardholders and that is what's important, Gogek said.

He predicts that the state will experience an extra 20 to 40 highway
deaths every year and an additional 2,000 to 3,000 high school
dropouts each year, based on studies he links to his website at
www.edgogek.com.

Gogek noted that Arizona is the only state with a medical marijuana
law that includes anti-discrimination language, so landlords can't
evict pot smokers and employers can't automatically fire them.

That's a good thing, Myers said, pointing to a Michigan medical
marijuana user with brain cancer who lost his job at Walmart.

Zoning regs next

Yavapai County Development Services Director Steve Mauk, also a
MatForce member, said the county will move ahead on its own medical
marijuana zoning discussion now that the state rules are final.

He plans to ask the county supervisors on April 18 whether they want
to enact stricter zoning requirements than the state.

The state is requiring dispensaries to be at least 500 feet from
schools, but that's about the only state zoning rule, Mauk said.

In Yavapai County outside of municipalities, dispensaries must be
located in commercial or retail sales districts, while commercial
cultivation and food infusion operations must be in industrial
districts, Mauk said.