- Arizona: Jan Brewer has begun accepting dispensary applications
WSJ.com – A state judge has ordered Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to fully implement a law passed by voters that allows medical-marijuana dispensaries in the state.
The judge also struck down several state regulations that concern the licensing of marijuana dispensaries.
The ruling, filed Wednesday, can be challenged but potentially clears the way for pot dispensaries to open in Arizona more than a year after voters approved them. A spokesman for Ms. Brewer said Thursday she hasn’t decided about whether to appeal the ruling.
In 2010, Arizona voters passed a medical-marijuana law that allows patients to procure the drug from nonprofit dispensaries and designated care-givers. Ms. Brewer has consistently opposed the law.
Nearly 18,000 people in Arizona have permission to possess pot for medical use, state records show. Though dispensaries have so far been barred from opening, Arizona law allows patients and designated caregivers to grow small amounts of marijuana.
After the state law was passed, Dennis Burke, the Arizona U.S. attorney at the time, sent Ms. Brewer a letter reminding her that marijuana still is illegal under federal law.
Last year, the state’s health department suspended its application process for dispensaries after Ms. Brewer said she needed assurance that state employees wouldn’t be prosecuted under federal law. A federal judge dismissed a suit Ms. Brewer filed last year seeking such assurance; the governor recently said she wouldn’t re-file the suit.
The latest ruling came just days after Ms. Brewer instructed state officials to begin processing applications for dispensaries as soon as the legal challenge to state regulations was resolved. Still, in a statement Friday, Ms. Brewer said she remained concerned about “potential abuses of the law” and had appealed to the U.S. attorney in Arizona again seeking clarity regarding state employee liability.
While pot has been legalized under medical-marijuana laws in states across the country, federal officials have gone after dispensary owners in some cases. That has put state officials, marijuana dispensaries and dispensary landlords in legal limbo.
In California, often seen as a bellwether for the medical-marijuana trade, federal officials last year started aggressively prosecuting dispensaries and landlords.
“The Court is not unmindful of the State’s dilemma; it is caught between the proverbial rock and hard place,” Maricopa County Superior Court Judge J. Richard Gama wrote in his Wednesday ruling.
“The voters intended [the law] to be implemented within 120 days. This has not been done,” Judge Gama wrote.
The judge also struck down several regulations for licensing imposed by the state—such as requiring a marijuana-dispensary applicant to have been an Arizona resident for three years—saying those regulations “substantively alter” the law’s requirements.
“It is very much our hope that the attitude of delay and stalling that’s gone into the implementation of this law is over,” said Ty Taber, a lawyer representing plaintiffs which brought the state suit, including Compassion First Arizona, an advocacy group for pot dispensaries.
Write to Tamara Audi at tammy.audi@wsj.com
Originally posted at the Wall Street Journal Here
