PHOENIX - Foes of legalizing adult recreational use of marijuana in Arizona are trying to keep the issue from going to voters in November. Legal papers filed in Maricopa County Superior Court contend the legally required 100-word description misled people into signing the petition to put the issue on the ballot. Issues range from the definition of "marijuana" to how the law would affect driving while impaired. The lawsuit comes as a new survey Tuesday finds widespread support for the proposal a=80" with more than 6 out of every 10 likely voters saying they will support it if it is on the ballot. Pollster Mike Noble of OH Predictive Insights said the query of 600 likely voters found that just 32% say they're definitely opposed. [continues 814 words]
Re: the Nov. 2 story "Steller wrong about propositions" While I normally appreciate and enjoy Tim Steller's column on a routine basis I fully disagree with his logic regarding his choice to vote no on Prop 205. Steller's logic is that at some point the legalization of marijuana will become "commercially" more acceptable than what is currently proposed on this years ballot. His view is that once again Arizona voters will have legalization on a future ballot. While Stellar waits for a more commercially acceptable plan, money flows into the drug cartels coffers, veterans are denied relief from their PTSD, police resources are wasted, courts are clogged and Arizona schools are denied tax revenue they desperately need. A 'no' vote on Prop 205 retains the ridiculous status quo of criminalizing the activity of thousands of Arizonans in order to line the pockets of both the cartels and special interests such as big Pharma and for profit private prisons. Todd Smyth Vail [end]
When I was 9 years old, a few older playmates from my fourth-through-sixth grade class started disappearing at lunchtime recesses. It took a long time before I found out what they were doing, somewhere off school grounds. They were smoking pot. This came to mind last week when proponents of Arizona's main marijuana-legalization effort pledged to provide $40 million per year in marijuana tax revenue for education if their initiative passes. Even though I'm an instinctive advocate of legalization, I agreed when Arizona's Republican Party chairman, Robert Graham, called the pro-legalization event a "pathetic display." What's pathetic is the suggestion that $40 million means anything significant to a state public school system that spends around $4.7 billion of state money every year. [continues 969 words]
PHOENIX - Attorney General Mark Brnovich has cleared the way for public officials to use their offices and public resources to "educate" voters on why they believe marijuana should not be made legal. In a new formal opinion, Brnovich acknowledged there are laws prohibiting the use of public funds to influence the outcome of elections - a restriction he noted that applies even before a proposal has qualified for the ballot. But Brnovich said no law prohibits public education campaigns - even ones that are not fair and balanced. He said even one-sided arguments are permitted "so long as they do not unambiguously urge the electorate to cast a vote for or against the measure." [continues 610 words]
PHOENIX - A decision Thursday by U.S. Department of Justice not to challenge marijuana legalization by two states does not make Arizona's medical marijuana law legal or acceptable, key prosecutors said. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said he will not drop his bid to have the state's 2010 voter-approved law declared illegal, noting possession and sale of marijuana is still a federal crime, regardless of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to let Colorado and Washington legalize the drug. [continues 535 words]
Dennis Bohlke insists there's no time to wait. Many people in the anti-prohibition movement are looking toward 2016 as the year Arizona voters should consider an initiative to legalize marijuana for personal, nonmedical use. But Bohlke, of Phoenix, is pushing for a vote in 2014. He took out petitions June 11 and filed a seven-page proposed constitutional amendment with the secretary of state. That leaves him and a loosely organized band of volunteers with a huge challenge: collecting 259,213 valid signatures by July 3, 2014, to put the initiative on next year's general-election ballot. [continues 659 words]
When it comes to comprehensive immigration reform, Washington has a laserlike focus on people crossing the border illegally. But that's only part of the equation, some border security experts say. "There are major crimes going on at the border - smuggling drugs and people north and smuggling guns and money south," said former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. "Only one of them is receiving attention." Most drug seizures occur along the Southwest border and Arizona remains one of the primary corridors. Hard drugs that used to be smuggled mainly through other parts of the Southwest border are increasingly coming through the state as well. [continues 1509 words]
Marijuana cardholder says deputies forced him to destroy them A 56-year-old man wants Pima County to give him $75,000 after forcing him to destroy the medical marijuana plants he was growing in his garage last December. An attorney representing James Merkle has filed a notice of claim with Pima County, asking for damages after Pima County sheriff's deputies forced him to uproot 12 small marijuana plants after responding to a report of a domestic disturbance at the home. [continues 228 words]
I was a prosecutor with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office from 1970 to 1974. I served seven years as a Maricopa County Superior Court judge. In 1981, I was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to serve as U.S. attorney. The top priority of my office from 1981 to 1985 was fighting the drug war. It would be natural to assume that I would oppose Arizona's voter-approved medical-marijuana law, which allows people with certain medical conditions to have access to medical marijuana through state-licensed regulated dispensaries. But sometimes it takes extraordinary circumstances to get people to see ordinary truths. [continues 511 words]
An Arizona appellate court has ruled that the Yuma County sheriff must return marijuana that was seized from a woman with a California medical marijuana authorization honored by Arizona. The Court of Appeals' ruling Thursday says medical marijuana seized from Valerie Okun must be returned to her because Arizona's medical marijuana law allows people with medical marijuana authorizations from other states to legally possess marijuana in Arizona. The marijuana was found Okun's vehicle at a Border Patrol checkpoint near Yuma. State drug charges against her were dismissed after she showed she had authorization under California's medical marijuana program. The Arizona court declined to consider prosecutors' argument that federal drug law invalidates Arizona's medical marijuana law. The Court of Appeals' ruling upholds one by a Yuma County Superior Court judge. [end]
For 40 years, at a cost of more than $1 trillion, America has waged a "war against drugs." It has failed completely. It has had no impact on the use of recreational drugs, which remains at the same or higher levels than when the "war" began. Why do we continue this costly, failed and unpopular policy when other countries have tried legalization and decriminalization with considerable success? Not surprisingly, the answer is money. Not just the drug dealers make huge profits, but also respected businesses and organizations. [continues 483 words]
Owner still must decide when to open Broadway-Kolb site in Gaslight Plaza Tucson's first medical marijuana dispensary has received state approval to open. Now the owner has to decide on a date. "Right now we haven't decided when we will open up," said Rouben Beglarian. "We're going to have a couple meetings with staff members and see when they feel comfortable." Beglarian's dispensary, Green Medicine, 112 S. Kolb Road at Broadway, in the Gaslight Plaza Shopping Center, passed inspection Tuesday. He received an email Wednesday from the Arizona Department of Health Services confirming he is allowed to open for business. He expects to start selling before the end of the year. [continues 225 words]
Lawyer asks court to allow dispensary zoning in Sun City PHOENIX - Prosecutors urged a judge Friday to declare that medical marijuana dispensaries and growing facilities are pre-empted by federal law. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said it's clear marijuana remains illegal under federal law. And he told Judge Michael Gordon marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug for which there is no legitimate medical use. That means the state cannot do anything that ultimately results in issuing a license to someone to sell marijuana, Montgomery argued. [continues 460 words]
PHOENIX - The American Civil Liberties Union is asking a judge to rebuff efforts by Attorney General Tom Horne to block state licensing of medical marijuana dispensaries. In legal papers filed Thursday, attorneys for the group want Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Gordon to rule Arizona is constitutionally entitled to determine what it does and does not want to make a crime. They acknowledged the federal Controlled Substances Act makes possession, sale and transportation of marijuana a felony. But they told Gordon none of that criminalizes the activities of state and local employees in processing the paperwork for everything from licenses to zoning permits, which Horne and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery contend is illegal. [continues 627 words]
PHOENIX - Sheriff's deputies will have to deliver three-quarters of an ounce of marijuana to a California woman if a Yuma County court commissioner gets her way. Lisa Bleich said it's not like she's ordering the deputies to become drug suppliers, pointing out that Valerie Okun had a valid medical marijuana card when the drugs were seized from her. The commissioner said all she is requiring is that the property be returned to its rightful owner. Bleich acknowledged that marijuana remains illegal under federal law. But she rejected county legal arguments that delivering the drugs to Okun would make the deputies guilty of illegal drug distribution under the federal Controlled Substances Act. [continues 490 words]
In the kiva-shaped sanctuary at Southside Presbyterian Church, Tucson's long-running center for progressive causes and rallying center for immigrants' rights, a gray-haired visitor stood solemnly at the podium and leaned into the microphone. With the speaking skills of a preacher, Javier Sicilia spoke in a subdued voice about the incessant and deafening violence in his native Mexico. There, some 50,000 people have died since Mexican President Felipe Calderon, at the blunt insistence of the United States, unleashed that country's military against the Mexican drug mafia nearly six years ago. [continues 563 words]
Do you have an employee who thinks he can show up at work with his clothes reeking of marijuana and get away with it just by saying the doctor told him to inhale? You can use a little-known database to sniff out the truth. Bosses are entitled to check with the Arizona Department of Health Services to find out if their workers are, in fact, medical marijuana users. And so far about 170 firms, from small shops to corporate giants Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and U-Haul International, have signed up to do so. [continues 904 words]
PHOENIX - Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a waiver to allow Attorney General Tom Horne to try to close down the marijuana dispensaries that her state health department is in the process of licensing. The move comes in the wake of Horne's legal opinion that the state cannot legally permit anyone to sell marijuana, even to those who have a doctor's recommendation to use the drug. Horne said as long as the drug remains illegal under federal law, the state is powerless to authorize anything to the contrary. [continues 465 words]
About 20 certified in Southern Arizona; litigation threatened PHOENIX - State health officials selected the first 97 potential operators of medical marijuana dispensaries Tuesday amid threats of litigation on multiple fronts. The voter initiative allowing the sale of medical marijuana provides for 126 such dispensaries distributed among the state's "community health analysis areas." Sixty-eight of those areas were hotly contested, drawing a total of 404 applicants. Winners in those areas were selected through a random lottery. Another 29 areas drew only one applicant each. [continues 783 words]
Top targets, in reality, were FBI informants, but ATF didn't know Even before hundreds of guns went across the border as part of Operation Fast and Furious, an interagency communication gap had left the investigation doomed, recently released information suggests. Unknown to the ATF agents leading the probe, the top possible targets of their investigation were working as FBI informants and were essentially "unindictable," according to congressional investigators and documents connected to the case. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives launched the investigation planning to go beyond arresting "straw buyers" and take down a whole cross-border gun-running ring. But it could never have reached its top targets, two brothers named Miramontes from the El Paso area, because they were protected "national security assets," says a Feb. 1 memo by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. [continues 1002 words]
