Ariz. Accepting Medical Marijuana Applications Starting Thursday

[bobandtorey]

 

 

PHEONIX – At 8 a.m. on Thursday the Arizona Health Department will start receiving medical marijuana card applications.

 

Once the application goes through, a card should be delivered by mail in about two weeks.

 

Since no dispensaries will be open until probably October of this year, every card holder will be allowed to grow their own marijuana at home as long as they follow strict guidelines.

 

In-house marijuana plants must be kept locked up and away from other family members.

 

Outdoor marijuana plants need to be blocked by a cement wall and steel gate.

 

Card holders are allowed to grow marijuana until a dispensary opens up within 25 miles of their home.

 

Finding and growing marijuana plants will be completely up to the card holder as the state health department will not help in any way.

 

Phoenix police are reminding people that being in possession of marijuana and not having a medical marijuana card is still against the law.

 

Card holders who sell or give cannabis to people who do not have a medical marijuana card will lose their card.

 

 

 

http://www.azfamily.com/news/State-accepts-applications-for-medical-marijuana-cards-tomorrow--119806764.html

 

 

[Sledge]

And all applications are done online only,

with a 2 week time frame for receiving cards.

Must be nice.

[Mike Sativa]

The 2 week wait is nice but Not allowed to grow if a dispensary pops up within 25 miles ?

[Guest Happy Guy]

Card holders are allowed to grow marijuana until a dispensary opens up within 25 miles of their home.

They have started a war in Pheonix with patients on the front line and dispensaries as targets for whatever will close their doors.

[bobandtorey]

May. 20, 2011

 

More than 2,300 Arizona residents have state permits to grow marijuana in their homes - for now. That will end in a few months when medical-marijuana dispensaries start opening and household gardeners must pull the plug on their grow lights or face criminal charges if they live within 25 miles of a dispensary.

 

But it's unclear who will enforce the shutdown, and spokesmen for local law-enforcement agencies say they expect that will be a challenge.

 

The state Department of Health Services began issuing the growing permits in April. DHS spokesman Laura Oxley said it will notify holders when the permits are no longer valid but will not inspect homes for compliance. That will be up to police if they suspect illegal activity, she said.

 

Joe Yuhas, spokesman for the Arizona Medical Marijuana Association, said the law was never meant to promote home cultivation. Doing it without a state permit is a criminal offense that carries stiff penalties, including possible fines and incarceration.

 

"I wouldn't think a person would want to take the risk," he said.

 

Law-enforcement agencies across the Valley are grappling with how and under what circumstances they will check on suspected illegal-marijuana-growing operations. Most say they have no plans to investigate addresses of expired permits routinely, and there must be a complaint or strong evidence of a crime before they would try to inspect a home. They agree that separating legal from illegal activity under the voter-approved medical-marijuana law will be difficult.

 

Patients who had a marijuana prescription when the law took effect last month can't buy it from legal vendors yet because the state won't be approving dispensary sites until August. They can, however, apply for home-cultivation cards available to anyone who isn't within 25 miles of a dispensary. Growing must be indoors and is limited to 12 plants.

 

According to commercial sites that sell lights and other equipment for indoor cultivation, growing setups can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. Phoenix police spokesman Steve Martos said it is puzzling why anyone would invest time and money in an indoor setup to use it only for a few months or risk criminal charges by continuing the cultivation.

 

So far, 2,315 Arizona residents have one-year state-issued cards to grow marijuana at home for personal use, although DHS officials say it is unlikely all are doing it.

 

Spokesmen for several Valley police agencies, including Phoenix, Chandler, Gilbert, Tempe and Scottsdale, said they have no plans to check homes on the DHS permit list routinely where residents may have expired marijuana-growing cards.

 

"The law prohibits police from using the fact that a person has a medical-marijuana card, by itself, to establish probable cause or reasonable suspicion of a crime," Chandler Detective Frank Mendoza said.

 

Neighbors who complain about suspected illegal drug activity may call police and spur an investigation. However, DHS information on marijuana-growing cards is not public record, so neighbors have no way of checking whether the house next door once had permission and doesn't any more. Police agencies, on the other hand, have access to the DHS records, including the names and addresses of those authorized to use or grow it and permit expiration dates.

 

Sgt. Steve Carbajal, Tempe police spokesman, said the department will likely use DHS data as "investigative tools" if there's a complaint or if police suspect illegal activity.

 

There must be strong evidence that a crime is being committed before police initiate an investigation into reputed illegal marijuana-growing, said Mendoza and Scottsdale police spokesman David Pubins.

 

Glendale police are discussing the challenges of marijuana enforcement under the new law with their legal department, and "we do not have absolute answers right now," said Sgt. Brent Coombs, a department spokesman.

 

Martos, the Phoenix spokesman, said home use of medical marijuana brings a myriad of enforcement challenges, including that the mere detection of marijuana odor is no longer a clear-cut indication of criminal activity.

 

Whatever police agencies say their plans are now could change in coming months as medical marijuana becomes more accessible, DHS spokeswoman Carol Vack said. "How they bust people for marijuana might change. There are a lot of gray areas, a lot of undefined areas in this law," Vack said.

 

 

 

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2011/05/20/20110520arizona-marijuana-police-challenges.html#ixzz1MwZxIDKa

[Guest Happy Guy]

But it's unclear who will enforce the shutdown, and spokesmen for local law-enforcement agencies say they expect that will be a challenge.

Good luck with that. We can watch how they do it so we know how to fight it when it comes here. It will some day, when the dispensaries finally get their way. Power to the patients of Arizona, an army of 2300 so far.

[bobandtorey]

There are a lot of gray areas if only we could tell them how gray it may be

and i think it will happen soon

[Guest Happy Guy]

I wonder how many bricks will find their way to dispensaries' windows?

You can bet there are some 'state connected' individuals that will have the Kuiper Like 10 major grows supplying the blood sucking dispensaries. The Obama Administration Memo has made some of the dispensaries suppliers rethink their plans. Which has given the patients of Arizona a little more time to grow. As the greed head supporting groups get their spin machine together to make it look like The Memo is a travesty to state rights and patient rights. What a tangled web! The feds actually helping patients keep their grow rights as NORML fights to keep their dispensary interests alive. Never would have thought this would happen. The first hint was the Arizona language. What is following is like an avalanche. I don't think anyone is going to stop the feds from keeping the pressure on the new states to stop their greedy grab for patient grow rights.