Late last week US attorneys announced a crackdown on the “large, for-profit medical marijuana industry” in California.

From CNN…

[The attorneys sent] letters of warning to landlords and lien holders of places in which marijuana is being sold illegally, “civil forfeiture lawsuits against properties involved in drug trafficking activity” and numerous criminal cases. The latter refers to arrests in recent weeks related to cases filed in federal courts in Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Fresno, all part of an effort that [US attorney Benjamin] Wagner claimed has resulted in the seizure of hundreds of pounds of marijuana, tens of thousands of plants and hundreds of thousands in cash.

In 1996, California became the first state in the US to legalize medical marijuana, and since then, dispensaries and growing operations have multiplied and prospered in California. In a domino effect, 15 states– including Arizona– have followed suit and created boutique laws regulating the sale, cultivation, and distribution of medical marijuana, AND cities and counties have created lower tiers of regulations to control where dispensaries and growing operations can be located and who can grow their own marijuana.

Even with layers upon layers of legislation, the bureaucrats and politicians have not been able to really control the spread of marijuana use. According to US government statistics, 16.7 million Americans 12 and older used marijuana at least once in the previous month (2009 data). Marijuana is believed to be the most widely used illegal “drug” in the US.

A poll released in August 2011 revealed that 55% of Americans support full legalization of marijuana– with Democrats (63%-33%)  and Independents (61%-34%) favoring marijuana legalization and most Republicans (46%-56%) oppose the change. An ABC News poll from 2010 showed 81% of Americans support medical marijuana. Many states, counties, and cities have decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana.

With such widespread use of marijuana, majority support for legalization, and a burgeoning industry: What’s the big deal? Why are the feds cracking down now, when they have allowed this industry to grow and spread for 15 years? Because they’re making money. Legislation in California, Arizona, and other states dictates that medical marijuana should be a nonprofit industry. (What’s up with that? Aren’t we a country of capitalists?)

From FOX News in LA…

Pot shops around Southern California have been raided, including a growing operations in Riverside County. In Orange County, federal agents moved to seize a property in a forfeiture action on Thursday, and Drug Enforcement Agents raided several shops in San Diego County.

Federal agents announced Friday that medical marijuana shops operating outside of state law must close within 45 days or face civil and/or criminal prosecution.

“While California law permits collective cultivation of marijuana in limited circumstances, it does not allow commercial distribution through the store-front model we see across California,” U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said yesterday.

Warning letters have been mailed to dozens of pot shops and landlords that have been targeted.

Marijuana advocates said it was waste of federal resources.

A year or more ago, as many as 1,000 pot shop were in business in and around Los Angeles as confusion reigned over state and local laws regulating marijuana.

Back to my question: Why crack down now? My personal theory is that this is all Governor Jan Brewer’s and Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne’s fault. Arizona voters legalized medical marijuana in 2010– much to the chagrin of our Nanny State government. Since that passage, the state, county, and city governments in Arizona have thrown up dozens of roadblocks to implementation (ie, strict local zoning laws for dispensaries and growers, licensing fees*, a steep $130 annual fee* for medical marijuana cards, physician referrals, etc.)

The biggest roadblock Horne and Brewer could come up with was a full-on legal challenge to the federal government (something Arizona relishes). Horne and Brewer are asking the feds to clarify the question of legality. How can medical marijuana be legal, when marijuana is illegal? Can state employees be arrested for participating in the distribution of marijuana? Even though 1000s of Arizonans have jumped through the hurdles, paid the annual fee, and now hold a medical marijuana cards, Horne has halted implementation of the law until he receives a ruling from the federal government.

The federal government’s stance on medical marijuana is untenable. In some ways, the policy of looking the other way while marijuana use proliferates is like the government’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. “Hide your sexuality, and we won’t prosecute you.” “Hide that joint, and we’ll pretend you’re not smoking pot.”

US attorneys are challenging and shutting down a well-established, wide-spread, successful industry in because distributors are making money– not unlike the German brewers who were targeted by the temperance movement. Except for the temporary prohibition of alcohol– which led to widespread illegal use– what other product or industry has been persecuted like this?  The sale of other mood-altering and sometimes-addictive drugs– pharmaceuticals, alcohol, and tobacco– is legal in the US and those industries do not have nonprofit status forced upon them. Why marijuana?

Maybe the time has come for legalization. I believe that the US attorneys are forcing a lawsuit (or multiple lawsuits) by cracking down on the country’s largest medical marijuana businesses. The patchwork of marijuana laws across the US is silly and inefficient, and the nonprofit requirements for medical marijuana are contrary to the country’s pro-business, for-profit underpinnings.

Many progressives have been disgruntled with President Obama’s conciliatory behavior toward Congressional conservatives; they feel that he has too often given in or compromised too early. Obama’s administration is not without progressive milestones. He increased the minimum wage, passed landmark healthcare reform, passed banking reform, repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, extended unemployment benefits, funded 1000s of teacher salaries and other public jobs when the states went broke, caught Osama bin Laden, tried to pass the DREAM Act, and continues to try to protect social safety net programs from Republican raids. What if he brought home the big kahuna– legalization of marijuana?

One of the reasons President Roosevelt and progressives repealed the prohibition was that the country needed that tax revenue from the sale of alcohol; our country could use the tax revenue from the sale of legal marijuana now. For this reason, some economists have predicted that legalization of marijuana is inevitable.  Tom Horne and Jan Brewer may have pushed this issue forward.

*P.S. The 1000s of medical marijuana cardholders who have paid $130 for a card and the dozens of businesses who have rented space and paid state fees and have been prohibited from conducting legal business by Horne’s political lawsuit should sue the state.

After the Tucson massacre and the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords early this month, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik called on the nation to do some soul-searching and blamed hateful, vitriolic speech for creating an atmosphere of hate in this country. Dupnik’s honesty in the face of tragedy won him hundreds– if not thousands– of supporters and enemies and catapulted him to the national stage with interviews on several television networks.

Now, a right-wing, anti-immigrant group– Americans Against Immigration Amnesty (AAIA)– from Utah has started a recall effort against Dupnik. Here is their vitriol against Dupnik from AAIA website. Compare AAIA’s totally inaccurate description of Dupnik’s comments below with the actual video footage above.

“Beginning the day of the horrific events in Tucson, Arizona that claimed the lives of 6 and injured so many others, we were deluged with emails and phone calls from members and non-members in Arizona, as well as across the United States concerning the actions of Pima County Sheriff, Clarence Dupnik.  Our members and Americans in general were bewildered by the Sheriff’s shameless political grandstanding and irresponsible comments within hours of this tragedy.  As one member of AAIA said, ‘the Sheriff has forever sullied his office, uniform and badge’.

In light of the requests from our members and Americans across the nation, we have completed our research, conferred with the appropriate legal experts and have concluded that the recall of Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupinik is the appropriate course on behalf of the citizens of Pima County.  We will therefore proceed with such a recall effort and are preparing the Petitions to be forwarded to Pima County registered voters to begin gathering the required signatures.  Our goal will be to gather 110,000 signatures in the coming weeks and this matter will promptly proceed to a recall election.”– Dan Baltes, Executive Director, Americans Against Immigration Amnesty

Americans Against Immigration Amnesty is a section 527 political organization with members in 47 states.

Dupnik’s speech is sad and soulful– not “shameless political grandstanding,” as AAIA describes it. Who is helping to promote AAIA’s efforts? FOX News (we already know what they think of Tucson), the Pima County Tea Party Patriots, and local right-wing shock jock Jon Justice.

Why are AAIA, FOX, the Tea Party Patriots, and Justice really after Dupnik? It has absolutely nothing to do with his comments after the Tucson massacre. These groups are targeting him because he was one of the few elected officials in Arizona who took a firm stand against SB1070– Arizona’s strict anti-immigrant legislation– last year. In a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, Dupnik didn’t mince words about SB1070

I have argued from the moment that this bill was signed that it is unnecessary, that it is a travesty, and most significantly, that it is unconstitutional.

Pima County, where I am sheriff, shares 123 miles of border with Mexico. Patrolling this area for illegal immigrants is like trying to keep water from passing through a sieve.

The pro-SB1070 Pima County Tea Party Patriots (not to be confused with the Tucson Tea Party) is planning a Dump Dupnik rally for this coming Friday. There are rumblings of a counter-protest by Dupnik supporters– which locally probably outnumber his detractors. The Pima County Democratic Party is suggesting donating blood to the Red Cross as a peaceful protest to the Tea Party.

The bottomline is: the right-wing is trying to suppress freedom of speech, silence Dupnik, and intimidate politicians from speaking from their hearts. We can’t let them get away with that. I’ll let you decide what to do about it.

UPDATE: Who said it was OK for the Utah group to recall our sheriff? Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall. Doesn’t Barbara like Clarence?

Arizona bureaucrats are wringing their hands over the implementation of Prop 203– the medical marijuana law that voters approved in November 2010.

The roadblocks that bureaucrats like Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall, Arizona Bar official Patricia Sallen, and now Arizona Department of Health Services Director Will Humble have erected bring me question one of this state’s core Republican values– free-market capitalism.

Is Arizona a nanny state that wants to protect its citizens from legal marijuana distribution? Or is Arizona a business-friendly, capitalist state that will allow the free market decide which marijuana dispensaries survive? So far, Arizona’s approach to the medical marijuana business is out-of-step with its generally laissez-faire, no-holds-barred business attitude.

The latest example of the state’s schizophrenic behavior appeared in an Associated Press story in today’s Arizona Daily Star. The story features hand-wringing Humble brainstorming about ways to hamper the medical marijuana industry with fees and over-regulation before it even gets off the ground. [Emphasis added.]

“Most other states, you hang out a shingle and you’re a dispensary,” said Will Humble, director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, which will regulate the medical marijuana industry. “I want to avoid those kinds of abuses.”

Humble sees limiting the number of dispensaries and putting stringent requirements in place as a way to avoid such issues.

Dispensary hopefuls will have to pay up to $5,000 to apply for a license. In their application, they’ll need to include addresses for their pot shops and off-site cultivation facilities; detailed security plans to prevent break-ins; procedures for accurate record-keeping; information about employees for background checks; a sworn statement that they’re meeting zoning requirements; and a statement pledging they won’t sell pot to unregistered patients.

The department hopes to post a draft of proposed requirements on Dec. 17 and finalize rules by late March.

If a business owner has the proper business licenses and has complied with local zoning, why shouldn’t they be able to “hang out a shingle” and become a medical marijuana dispensary? How is that an “abuse”? Isn’t that called capitalism? Seriously, folks, how is this different from setting up a pharmacy or a shop that sells nutritional supplements?

So, Governor Jan Brewer wants to give huge tax cuts to businesses that will re-locate to Arizona, but would-be marijuana dispensary businesses get hefty fees + mountains of procedures + a patchwork of city and county zoning regulations + the requirement to be non-profit + a limit on growth + no legal help? That doesn’t seem business friendly to me.

UPDATE: Check out this link for the update on this story.

The Arizona Bar Association recently announced that Arizona lawyers may not be able to assist would-be clients who have a legal problem related to the state’s new medical marijuana law.

Patricia Sallen, ethics counsel for the Arizona Bar Association, said that Arizona lawyers are not allowed to help clients break the law.

Since medical marijuana is now legal in Arizona and since the federal government said it would not prosecute marijuana cases in states where medical marijuana is legal, what’s the big deal? From the NY Daily News:

Federal drug agents won’t pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.

The big deal, according to Sallen, is that even though the new law allows patients with a doctor’s recommendation are allowed to buy 2.5 ounces of marijuana every 2 weeks, marijuana possession is still illegal under federal law.

Sallen said that [illegality of marijuana possession at the federal level] could keep attorneys from helping Arizona corporations set up a dispensary. And it also could mean no help going to court for any company that believes it was unfairly or unlawfully denied a dispensary license — or even for an individual who claims to be entitled to a medical marijuana card.

This disconnect between state and federal law could leave medical marijuana patients, caregivers, and business owners who want to dispense or grow medical marijuana in the lurch for legal assistance. Sallen says she is basing her preliminary opinion on a similar situation in the state of Maine. OK, that’s Maine’s opinion, but what about the 14 other states and the District of Columbia? They also have medical marijuana laws. What is their stance?

In my opinion, this is just another legal roadblock in Arizona’s medical marijuana saga. Arizona voters passed medical marijuana twice before, but the Arizona Legislature stopped implementation. This year, Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall vehemently (and some say inappropriately) campaigned (1, 2) against medical marijuana before the 2010 election. After Prop 203 passed, she and her minons heavily lobbied the Pima County Board of Supervisors and the Tucson City Council for highly restrictive zoning laws. In the end, neither body adopted all of LaWall’s recommendations, but the county now has more restrictive zoning for dispensaries and growing operations than the city does.

So, let’s focus here– there are 4 different levels of laws governing medical marijuana– federal, state, county, and city– and citizens who want to benefit from this new industry and businesses that want to participate in its creation can’t hire a lawyer in Arizona? What sense does that make?

It only makes sense if you are part of the legal establishment that has benefited from prohibition and you want to set this industry up for failure– or at least inhibit growth– by denying legal counsel.

Given this paranoia by local legal officials, it’s no surprise that the state bar association has tossed out yet another barrier to progress.

UPDATE: Check out this link for the update on this story.

Tuesday’s Mayor and Council Meeting will be one of the liveliest meetings they have had for months. Both the Convention Center hotel project and proposed medical marijuana zoning are on the agenda for October 26.

The public meeting will be held at the Tucson Convention Center. Councilman Steve Kozachik pushed for a larger venue because people had been shut out of earlier Mayor and Council meetings due to insufficient seating. The meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. There is a call to the audience where anyone can voice their opinion. Here is some background information, and if you follow the agenda link there are background PDF documents online.

Convention Center Hotel

Literally for years, Tucson’s Mayor and Council have been debating, negotiating, and planning for a Convention Center hotel downtown. Once the Great Recession hit, the hotel’s construction and the politically and financially risky debt associated with it became one giant hot political potato.

Everything got muddier downtown after Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona Legislature created the Rio Nuevo Board to rescue us poor Tucsonans from ourselves and show us how to spend our money.  My understanding was that the businessmen (of course, we know that they have our best interests at heart) on Rio Nuevo Board would make the decisions on how to spend the Rio Nuevo funds, since progress has been… well… spotty, deals and plans have fallen through, wild ideas like the UA’s $300 million-dollar rainbow bridge and the turtle-shaped arena football stadium have been floated, and the M&C’s decision-making has been mushy.

Unfortunately, the Rio Nuevo Board appears to be more interested in playing politics and fighting the Mayor and Council– rather than making sound decisions. (Hello, Jan, this isn’t working. Are you paying attention to the mess you created?) Consequently, the Rio Nuevo Board has added to the problems, rather than coming up with solutions. In an earlier article, I likened this back-and-forth bickering to the classic Abbot and Costello skit, “Who’s on First?”

For the last few months, Kozachik has been trying to get the Rio Nuevo Board to take responsibility for the convention hotel decision, and they have been avoiding it. To add to the political theater, Mayor Bob Walkup, the primary cheerleader for the ultra-expensive hotel, has been using agenda maneuvers to avoid a yay or nay vote on the hotel by the City Council. Kozachik has been pushing for open debate and vote on the hotel; Walkup wants discussions behind closed doors.

Medical Marijuana Zoning

Prop 203, which is on the November 2 ballot, proposes to legalize the use of medical marijuana. Since the Arizona voters have passed this law at least twice before, it is expected to pass again– despite the intense campaign efforts by Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall, who trying to stop it (1, 2). Cities and counties around the state need to make decisions regarding zoning for medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation. Again, check out the agenda for more information.

Holding this meeting at the TCC is about as public as you can get. So, take this advantage to participate in your local government and come downtown on Tuesday! If you can’t make it, you can watch the proceedings on Tucson Channel 12 (online or on television).

Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall and other attorneys from her office are continuing their campaign against medical marijuana, which is on the November 2 ballot as Prop 203.

LaWall and Deputy County Attorney Thomas Rankin used the same fear tactics on AM1330′s John C. Scott Show recently as she did at her public non-forum a few weeks ago.

To his credit, Scott started the show by asking how she can campaign for or against an issue when she is county attorney. LaWall said she is allow to “voice her opinion” but is not allow to tell anyone how to vote. Technically, LaWall didn’t say, “Vote NO on Prop 203″, but she spent nearly an hour of the two-hour show lambasting medical marijuana and sneering at anyone who would “demand” it.

LaWall called medical marijuana a “smoke screen” and a “prescription for disaster.” Comically, she used the same “it’s so long!” defense that the anti-healthcare-reform folks do. Problem is the medical marijuana legislation is 36 pages, and the healthcare reform bill is 2000. Come on, Barbara, 36 pages is too long?

Under Prop 203, a person can get a medical marijuana patient card for any of a number of major illnesses like cancer or HIV/AIDS or to sooth the side effects from treatment for a major illness or to provide palliative care for chronic ailments like depression or chronic pain. The patient card allows you to buy 2.5 ounces of pot every 2 weeks. If you live more than 25 miles from a dispensary, you can grow up to 12 plants in a locked room, closet, shed, green house, or anything else that can be secured. (Of course, you don’t want anyone stealing your plants.) People who are licensed as unpaid caregivers can take care of as many as 5 patients, which allows the caregivers 5 times as much pot.

Rankin and LaWall contend that there are already prescription drugs for pain, and people should just use those. The problem is prescription drugs are expensive, and they usually have side effects. Cancer treatment, for example, is thousands of dollars; why add hundreds of dollars of addition cost for palliative care when you can grow 12 marijuana plants in your bedroom closet? Medical marijuana is a very affordable, natural drug– unlike most pharmaceuticals.

Personally, it really riles me up when LaWall starts putting down cancer patients who want marijuana to help them endure the side effects of treatment. She did this at the forum and on Scott’s show. After a few minutes, I couldn’t take it and called the show. She claimed that no doctors at the Arizona Cancer Center want marijuana for their patients. This is a flat out lie.

I pointed out that at her non-forum, there was a cancer doctor and a cancer nurse from the Arizona Cancer Center and a breast cancer patient; none of them were allowed to speak. When I interviewed the doctor and nurse outside later, they were appalled by the way LaWall’s performance that evening. The doctor told me, “I want to be able to prescribe marijuana for my patients. They need it.”

LaWall moves into Reefer Maddness mode when she talks about dispensaries and growing operations. Prop 203 limits the number of dispensary licenses to 120 statewide. Both Pima County and the City of Tucson have been working on zoning regulations for dispensaries.

Arizona voters have passed medical marijuana laws twice before, but the Arizona Legislature stopped the measures from becoming law. Since then, another voter initiative was passed that forces the Legislature to make anything law that the voters vote for.

If you want an unbiased report about medical marijuana, I recommend Diane Rehm’s recent National Public Radio show. NPR has had several other shows about the topic like this one about it’s medicinal properties. From the New York Times, this story Marijuana, Once Divisive, Brings Some Families Closer talks about adult children supplying marijuana to their aging parents. The quotes from patients who have had experience with both prescription pain relievers and marijuana are enlightening.

For the law enforcement point of view, check out Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). This is a group of current and retired law enforcement officers and lawyers who believe that prohibition of marijuana and other drugs escolates violence. They advocate legalization. (By the way, on Scott’s show, I asked LaWall and Rankin if they had ever heard of LEAP, but they didn’t answer.)

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have medical marijuana. Will Arizona be next? I hope so. I have worked in healthcare and public health for more than 20 years– including several years at the Arizona Cancer Center. I have interviewed patients, family members, caregivers, and physicians about cancer, cancer prevention, and cancer treatment. When you have seen the courage these people have and witnessed their struggle first hand, you would never deny them something that helps them become disease free. Vote YES on Prop 203.

I have been seriously jonesing to go to Washington, DC for the progressive rallies being held in October. After all I have a hybrid car and at least one person + 2 cattle dogs who would love to go on a road trip.

Problem is I also have a fulltime job and can’t take 2 weeks off for the round trip.

Ever since I learned about these 3 rallies, I have been pining away to hear Ed Schultz, Jon Stewart, and/or Stephen Colbert address the teeming throngs of progressives on the mall in DC, but alas…

Now, thanks to the ingenuity and marketing savvy of the Hotel Congress, Tucson progressives can enjoy the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or the March to Keep Fear Alive without leaving town. The rallies begin at 9 a.m. on 10-30-10.

Personally, I think they should secure Governor Jan Brewer and Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall as keynote speakers for the Keep Fear Alive rally.

For Restoring Sanity…hmmm…definitely there are no Arizona Republican politicians who could address a rally with that title– especially since Stewart called Arizona the “meth lab of democracy”. Maybe Dave Ewoldt or Andrew Weil?

Here is a link to the Tucson rally and a link list of other states and cities that are having rallies. And, of course, in case you’re not already distracted enough, you can follow it all on facebook and Twitter.

As political junkie, I have attended numerous public forums, City Council meetings, Pima County Board of Supervisers’ meetings, and even Arizona Legislature sessions, but tonight’s “educational” forum on medical marijuana (Prop 203) was the weirdest, most one-sided and contentious non-debate that I have ever witnessed.

In a nutshell, Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall [check out the seriously under-the-radar website link] used this public forum (and a Pima County facility) to give her personal opinion on medical marijuana, scare the audience, and campaign for a No vote on Prop 203. (Isn’t this unethical behavior?)

At the onset, LaWall said that the meeting was not a debate or a public forum but simply an educational meeting. She said her goal was to “educate and inform” the audience about Prop 203. Fair enough but that is not what transpired.

LaWall’s slanted slide show, her “facts” about medical marijuana, and editorial emphasis on certain key points made it obvious that she was not providing education; she was using her office to campaign against medical marijuana.

Early on, in the non-debate, the mostly pro-203 audience of about 40 people began to challenge her “facts”. For example, she said that marijuana was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a “medicine” and that it has not been research-tested. (Earth to Barbara, the FDA has not approved St. John’s Wort for depression, black cohash for menopause, or any number of herbal remedies and supplements, but drug stores and health food stores are selling them.)

Marijuana has not been approved as a medicine because there are no pharmaceutical companies producing marijuana pills and funding multi-center clinical trials. Since it is illegal in most states, there is no economic incentive to pay millions of dollars to test it. (Drug research in the US is based on capitalism, not on the overall public good.) On the flip side, there have been loads research articles providing anecdotal evidence and case studies on the benefits of medical marijuana.

Regarding research testing of Controlled Substances, in the US most research is funded by the federal government or by drug companies. After the free-wheeling 1960s when Timothy Leary. Ram Das, Andrew Weil, and others at Harvard Medical School were conducting clinical trials of, writing about, and/or experimenting with mind-altering drugs, the Nixon administration clamped down on experimentation (research or otherwise), and medical research into potential benefits of controlled substances was suppressed. (Research funding is a political football.)

I digress. Back to tonight’s political theater… instead of answering questions from the audience, LaWall became defensive, skipped through some slides, threatened to have people removed, and solicited help from uniformed police officers to control the crowd of citizens with legitimate questions. Since LaWall refused to call on people who raised their hands early on, audience members started shouting questions and comments.

For example, she answered one of my questions, but only when I said I was a journalist and asked, “Do you want me to write that you refused to answer audience questions?” When I raised my hand with a follow-up question, I was ignored– along with many others.

Eventually the audience turned to heckling, but, seriously, LaWall deserved it. One breast cancer patient shouted out how much medical marijuana has helped her over the past 2 years of chemothearpy. Community activists accused LaWall of abusing her elected office by using the public forum to voice her personal opinion. Outside, a cancer doctor and palliative care cancer nurse told me that LaWall just doesn’t understand the benefits of medical marijuana to their patients.

The meeting lasted about 30-40 minutes, since LaWall refused to answer the vast majority of questions or address comments from the audience. This was a pathetic performance by an elected official.

On November 2, 2010, Arizona voters will again have the opportunity to approve medical marijuana (Prop 203). Arizonans have approved medical marijuana at least twice before in my recollection. What makes the 2010 vote different? In 1998, Arizona voters got tired of voting for initiatives and then having the Republican-controlled Legislature not enact the voters’ wishes. Consequently, the Voter Protection Act was passed. This forces the Legislature to enact laws approved by the voters. (Watch out for this because Republican legislators are trying to undermine our initiative process.)

Old hippies, stoners, cancer patients, people with chronic pain and other medical conditions improved by marijuana, and other freedom-loving Americans who want less government control of our lives– mark your calendars. I’ll make it easy for you. Here are the election-related deadlines you need to know:

- To vote on November 2, you must register by October 4, 2010. You can register to vote here.
- The first day of early voting and the day that early ballots are mailed is October 7, 2010.
- You can also request to be on the Permanent Early Voting List (PEVL). This means you automatically always get a ballot in the mail. (You can change this at any time; you can also drop the ballot off at a polling place on election day. It’s easy, trust me.)
- The last day to request an early ballot is October 22, 2010. Here is a list of early voting sites.
- Election day is November 2, 2010. If you don’t know where to vote, check out the Pima County Recorder’s website. And, again, thanks to Republicans, you have to take an official government identification with you to the polls.

Also, while you’re voting for medical marijuana, vote for Arizona Democrats. Statistics show that most people don’t like the way the Republicans are running this state (ie, 2nd in poverty, 50th in education, worst unemployment in 27 years). It is long past time to throw those bums out!

In the future, looks for public forums on zoning for medical marijuana. Counties and cities around Arizona will be trying to control usage, dispensaries, and cultivation. Don’t let them undermine your rights!