Pubdate: Sun, 30 Dec 2012
Source: East Valley Tribune (AZ)
Copyright: 2012 East Valley Tribune.
Contact: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/opinion/submit_a_letter/
Website: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2708
Author: Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services East Valley Tribune

ARIZONA STUDY: NEARLY 29 PERCENT OF HIGH SCHOOLERS SMOKE MARIJUANA

Close to one out of every eight high schoolers who admitted to smoking
marijuana recently say they got it from a medical marijuana cardholder.

The biennial study done by the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission
found that nearly 29 percent of students in grades 10 through 12
admitted to having smoked marijuana at some point. And more than 14
percent said they had inhaled in the last 30 days. Click here to find
out more!

Not surprisingly, the vast majority said they had obtained the drug
from a friend, with family and relatives also a major source.

But 11.6 percent said they got the marijuana from one of the more than
33,000 individuals who have the state's permission to legally grow or
purchase marijuana for their own medical conditions. Because the
survey allows multiple responses, that could include friends and
family members.

Deputy Pima County Attorney Rick Unklesbay said the response could
have been foretold.

"I don't think people should be surprised by the fact that easier
access to marijuana by medical card holders will lead to easier abuse
by minors," he said.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Mongtomery, who is trying to shut down
the whole program, concurred.

"When you wind up with a purported medical marijuana system that in
reality is a recreational use system, I would say that this is a
foreseeable consequence," he said. And Montgomery said he believes
that Arizona will see the same sort of increase in unauthorized teen
use that has been recorded in other states with medical marijuana laws.

Cory Nelson, a deputy assistant director of the Arizona Department of
Health Services which administers the medical marijuana program, said
his agency is paying attention to the numbers of teens who said they
got the drugs from a cardholder. But Nelson said people should not
lose sight of other numbers in the report.

"We've got almost 80 percent who say they're getting it from friends,
and another 15 percent that say they're getting it from family," he
said. "So we need to make sure we are looking at all those areas and
not just the one."

Nelson said, though, he is not minimizing the problem.

"If people are giving away their marijuana, they certainly are
committing a crime ... in providing that substance to somebody that's
not authorized to have it."

Montgomery said one thing he would be interested in learning is
whether the cardholder who is providing the marijuana is a fellow teen
or an adult.

In general, the 2010 Arizona law allows adults who have a doctor's
recommendation to get a state-issued ID card allowing them to obtain
up to 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana every two weeks. But the law also
allows parents or guardians to obtain a recommendation for a minor
child, albeit with some additional hurdles.

The question that remains is whether police or prosecutors can do much
about this aspect of the problem.

"When you have a juvenile who is in possession of marijuana, it's not
a standard course of questioning to ask, 'Where did you get it from?'
" Montgomery said. "You'd have to have someone volunteer information
about where they procured the marijuana."

Unklesbay said that arrests of individuals for having small amounts of
marijuana are rare.

He said some people get charged with possession if they're already
being arrested for something else and the marijuana charge "just gets
tacked on." In other circumstances, though, if someone is found with a
small amount of the drug, it is likely to result in nothing more than
a citation to show up in city court "and no follow-up investigation is
done."

Unklesbay said it is up to police to find out why a minor has
marijuana and whether they got it from a legal cardholder.

"They can use the juvenile's statement to go after the adult who
transfers it," he said. "I think they'd be interested in that kind of
abuse of the medical certificate."

Nelson said that, aside from criminal penalties, any cardholder who
gives away or sells marijuana to someone not authorized to have it
faces loss of the card. He acknowledged, though, that can require a
full-blown hearing.

Repeated calls to Joe Yuhas, spokesman for the Arizona Medical
Marijuana Policy Project, the group that pushed the 2010 initiative,
were not returned. Neither were calls to the national Marijuana Policy
Project which provided some of the funding for the campaign.

Attorney General Tom Horne, who also opposes the law, said the
findings in the report about teen use and where they get it is
consistent with other information about the medical marijuana program.

"The number of young males with medical cards is all out of proportion
to the number of young males that suffer from the kinds of ailments
that we're supposed to be giving cards for," he said, calling the law
"badly abused."

Figures from the health department show nearly three-fourths of all
cardholders are male, with nearly half of cardholders younger than
40.

Close to 90 percent of patients approved for use of the drug are
complaining of chronic pain; the closest second is nausea at 7.5 percent. 
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