Marijuana Blog

Health officials in Arizona say they have already revoked the medical marijuana cards from two patients in the state and they are ready to revoke more than a dozen more from people they say are violating the AZ medical marijuana law.

Typically, officials said, cards are revoked if a law-enforcement agency notifies health officials of an arrest tied to buying or selling medical marijuana, which is illegal. The law does not allow the sale of marijuana to patients outside of dispensaries, which have yet to open in Arizona. Instead, patients can only give marijuana to each other, receiving nothing of value in return. Or, health officials said, cards can be revoked if patients fail to properly secure plants in a locked facility.

Tom Salow, a rules administrator for ADHS, said some caregivers could soon lose their marijuana cards, too, because they either did not disclose a violent-crime history on their applications or they have violated certain drug laws.

He said the agency has fallen behind in revoking the cards because officials have to research applicants’ backgrounds and issue the cards in a short time.

“(The law) doesn’t give us enough time to get background checks from the Department of Public Safety and make a decision on the application in enough time,” Salow said. “We approve the applications, give them a card, and if it comes back with a hit after research … and a decision to revoke is made, then we revoke. It takes us a little while — it isn’t as easy as we thought it would be.”

While medical marijuana laws are great and represent progress, at some point a non-toxic plant like cannabis should not have all these rules and hoops to jump through while much more dangerous substances are easier to get.

Source: http://tucsoncitizen.com