MORE THAN 13,000 ARIZONANS ARE NOW CARD-CARRYING MEDICAL MARIJUANA
USERS

PHOENIX -- Exactly five months into the voter-approved program, more
than 13,000 Arizonans now have the state's legal permission to get
high.

And at this rate, 32,000 of your friends and neighbors will be
card-carrying medical marijuana users when the system hits the first
anniversary.

But state Health Director Will Humble said he cannot predict
ultimately what percentage of Arizonans will become medical marijuana
users. He said, though, there is no immediate indication that the
figure will hit 200,000 any time soon, the number of people in
Colorado -- a state of similar size -- who possess that's state's
medical marijuana card.

The latest figures also show that the use of marijuana, at least
legally, is not spread equally around the state.

Among the 126 community health districts, the largest numbers are
concentrated in a few areas in Scottsdale, north and east Phoenix, as
well as the east side of Mesa and southeast Chandler. There also is a
pocket in the Peoria area.

But residents of Tucson's Catalina foothills area, and those living on
the eastern edge of the city also have lined up for their medical
marijuana cards.

And a fair number of Prescott-area residents also are
participants.

Humble said there was an initial rush of applications in the days
following the April 14 start of the program, with applications coming
in at the rate of about 100 a day.

"It's tapered off a little bit,' he said. But Humble said the online
application system still is getting close to 70 requests each day,
leading to his extrapolation of 32,000 users by the middle of next
April.

Humble, however, said it's more difficult to make predictions on a
longer-term basis.

He pointed out that the cards are good for only one year. And with an
annual $150 fee, Humble said some people may decide not to renew.

In some cases, Humble said, their medical situation may have changed.
But he said other may have believed that, once they had a card, "they
could walk into a dispensary' to pick up their legally permitted 2 1/2
ounces of marijuana every two weeks.

"That's probably not going to be the case any time soon,' Humble said.
His agency has so far refused to license any dispensaries, with
attorneys for the state asking a federal court to first rule whether
health department workers who process these applications might be
subject to federal prosecution for facilitating the possession and
sale of marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law.

Humble also said the restrictions the health department put on the
program may account for the fact that there are not more medical
marijuana users in Arizona.

"I think we've done as good a job as we possibly can to keep it as
medical as possible,' he said, vs. a program that was really designed
to provide recreational users a legal method to obtain their drugs.

That includes various requirements for doctors to examine patients and
review medical records. And Humble has asked medical boards to
investigate a handful of doctors who appear to be processing
applications at a rapid rate, suggesting it appears they were more
interested in making money by issuing marijuana certifications than
meeting their patients' legitimate medical needs.

Still, Humble said, his rules can go only so far. The voter-approved
law which spells out the conditions under which a doctor can recommend
marijuana has a broad catch-all category of "chronic pain,' a category
cited in more than eight out of every 10 applications.

"There are certainly recreational users in the system,' he
said.

"There's no doubt about that,' Humble continued. "But I'm pleased with
the fact that we've done everything that we can to try to keep it as
medical as possible.'