Pubdate: Fri, 10 Aug 2012
Source: Today's News-Herald (Lake Havasu City, AZ)
Copyright: 2012 Today's News-Herald
Contact:  http://www.havasunews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5231

SECRECY IN POT LAW A PUBLIC DISSERVICE

When the winners of the state lottery for new medical marijuana 
dispensaries were drawn earlier this week, a couple of things were 
conspicuously absent: The names of the winners and the locations at 
which they intend to do business.

The state Department of Health Services says that information is private.

How can that be? Don't people deserve to know whether a marijuana 
dispensary is opening right down the street? Yes, they do. So who 
decided this information can be kept private? Well, sorry to say, it 
was the voters who approved that provision as part of Prop. 203, the 
Medical Marijuana Act.

The proposition narrowly passed in 2010, so it's easy enough to 
forget that it wasn't worded as simply a yes-no vote on medical 
marijuana. It was instead a very lengthy proposition that set all 
sorts of rules and procedures for the establishment of medical 
marijuana user cards and for the creation of dispensaries.

One provision provided confidentiality for names and locations of 
dispensary operators.

That doesn't mean the dispensary winner in a district can set up shop 
anywhere. There are zoning limitations. It does mean, though, that 
the public won't know the names of those eight applicants who sought 
dispensary licenses in the Lake Havasu City area, nor will it learn 
the name of the winner.

We suspect there may be quite a few surprises like that as the 
marijuana law is implemented. If indeed it ever is. The state went 
ahead with the lottery despite new legal challenges over the right of 
the state to trump federal drug law, under which marijuana is illegal.

DHS officials say they've cautioned dispensary lottery winners to not 
spend a lot of money setting up shop yet, given the lawsuits. A 
dispensary will still take a long time to get open, as it has 
rigorous regulatory requirements that must be met before a license 
will be issued.

The legal challenges center on the state's facilitation of dispensary 
applications, not the privileges conferred by a medical marijuana 
card. Barring a sweeping rejection of the state's law in a federal 
court, it looks like card-carrying marijuana users who grow their own 
will be untouched.

The dispensaries, too, might make it, but if they do, most people 
won't be able to find out where they are.

Unless they get a medical marijuana card. That's the sole path to 
learning the location of the dispensaries.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom