Prop. 203 ok’s medical marijuana
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by Kierstin Turnock on December 2, 2010 at 12:41 am under News
As the recount began to unfold, the margin between success and defeat began to shrink for Arizona Proposition 203 — a ballot measure asking the state’s voters to legalize medical marijuana. Finally, 11 days after the election, it was announced 203 had just narrowly passed, 50.13 percent to 49.87 percent.
After trailing by as many as 10,000 votes on Election Day, the proposition had ridden to a 4,341 victory after all the poll results were tabulated.
Fred Solop, a political science professor at NAU, said he was stunned to see the proposition get approval from the voters after an early deficit, but he did not find the eventual outcome to be out of character for the state.
“The vote on medical marijuana was extremely close,” Solop said. “The opposition was ahead much of the time, though the election was not decided for almost two weeks. In that respect, I was surprised to see that the ballot question was ultimately supported by Arizona voters. From a historical perspective, Arizona voters supported medical marijuana on two previous occasions. Thus, it was not a total surprise to see medical marijuana supported once again.”
The recount included the ballots cast on Election Day and about 11,000 outstanding provisional and early voter ballots that had yet to be counted.
The passing of Prop. 203 makes Arizona the 15th state in the nation — excluding the District of Columbia — to legalize medical marijuana. Solop said public opinion throughout the nation is trending toward partial, medical-related legalization of cannabis.
“As medical marijuana acceptance grows, it is not surprising to see more states supporting the concept,” Solop said. “Layer this on top of the fact that we’re an aging population, and you can see that momentum is on the side of medical marijuana becoming more accepted throughout the nation.”
The new law allows physicians to prescribe 2.5 oz. of marijuana every two weeks to patients with serious debilitating illnesses, including HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, Alzheimer’s, Crohn’s disease, cancer and multiple sclerosis. If patients live more than 25 miles away from a licensed dispensary, they are allowed to grow up to 12 plants in their home with a permit and doctor consent.
While the state government cannot prevent the new law from going into effect, Solop said the Arizona Department of Health Service and the state legislature now face the issue of regulating the distribution of medical marijuana.
“The issue now is in the hands of Arizona Department of Health Services to develop a system for regulating and distributing medical marijuana,” Solop said. “The legislature could intervene in the process and shape final regulations.”
On Nov. 30, a panel discussion titled “Prop 203 Passed… Now What?” was held in the Communication building. The panel consisted of Erica Jenkins, a senior criminal justice major, Officer Jerry Rintala of the Flagstaff Police Department (FPD) and Kurtis Campbell, a senior speech communication major. The panelists discussed what the future holds for the regulation of medical marijuana and the challenges law enforcement will face in enforcing Prop. 203.
Rintala said FPD and other departments across the state will face issues verifying medical permits and conducting efficient sobriety tests.
“I can verify an ID,” Rintala said. “I can verify a permit. How are we going to verify that it is an actual prescription? We are still going to do field sobriety tests, but that is the only way we can test without drawing blood”.
Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for Rational Marijuana Legalization (NORML) foundation, said his group approves of Arizona’s decision on Prop. 203.
“[Arizona’s] medical cannabis law is best described as hybrid, as it is a combination of a number of different models from other states,” St. Pierre said. “Overall, NORML is happy to see [Arizona] become the 15th state to create legal protections for sick, dying or sense-threatened medical patients who, along with their physician, opt to choose cannabis as a cheap, effective and non-toxic alternative to pharmaceuticals.”
4 Comments
If you support prohibition then you are NOT a conservative.
Conservative principles, quite clearly, ARE:
1) Limited, locally controlled government.
2) Individual liberty coupled with personal responsibility.
3) Free enterprise.
4) A strong national defense.
5) Fiscal responsibility.
Prohibition is actually an authoritarian War on the Constitution and all civic institutions of our great nation.
It’s all about the market and cost/benefit analysis. Whether any particular drug is good, bad, or otherwise is irrelevant! As long as there is demand for any mind altering substance, there will be supply; the end! The only affect prohibiting it has is to drive the price up, increase the costs and profits, and where there is illegal profit to be made criminals and terrorists thrive.
The cost of criminalizing citizens who are using substances no more harmful than similar things that are perfectly legal like alcohol and tobacco, is not only hypocritical and futile, but also simply not worth the incredible damage it does.
Afghani farmers produce approx. 93% of the world’s opium which is then, mostly, refined into street heroin then smuggled throughout Eastern and Western Europe.
Both the Taliban and the terrorists of al Qaeda derive their main income from the prohibition-inflated value of this very easily grown crop, which means that Prohibition is the “Goose that laid the golden egg” and the lifeblood of terrorists as well as drug cartels. Only those opposed, or willing to ignore this fact, want things the way they are.
Kindly Google: A GLOBAL OVERVIEW OF NARCOTICS-FUNDED TERRORIST GROUPS
Prohibition provides America’s sworn enemies with financial “aid” and tactical “comforts”. The Constitution of the United States of America defines treason as:
“Article III / Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”
Support for prohibition is therefor an act of treason against the Constitution, and a dire threat to the nation’s civic institutions.
The Founding Fathers were not social conservatives who believed that citizens should be subordinate to any particular narrow religious moral order. That is what the whole concept of unalienable individual rights means, and sumptuary laws, especially in the form of prohibition, were something they continually warned about.
It’s time for us all to wise up and help curtail the dangerous expansions of federal police powers, the encroachments on individual liberties, and the increasing government expenditure devoted to enforcing the unworkable and dangerous policy of drug prohibition.
To support prohibition you have to be either ignorant, stupid, brainwashed, insane or corrupt.
* The US national debt has increased at an average rate of $3,000,000000 per day since
* The unemployment rate has increased by 7300 per day since 2008.
* The loss of manufacturing jobs has been 1400 per day since 2006.
* Without the legalized regulation of opium products Afghanistan will continue to be a bottomless pit in which to throw countless billions of tax dollars and wasted American lives.
* The hopeless situation in Afghanistan is helping to destabilize it’s neighbor, Pakistan, which is a country with nuclear weapons.
* The mayhem in Mexico has deteriorated so badly that it’s bordering on farcical.
There is nothing conservative about prohibition, which enlists the most centralized state power in displacement of domestic and community roles. There is everything authoritarian and subversive about this policy which has incinerated American traditions such as Freedom and Federalism with its puritanical flames. Any person seeking to insure and not further compromise the safety of their family and of their neighbors must not only repudiate prohibition but help spearhead its abolition.
We will always have adults who are too immature to responsibly deal with tobacco, alcohol, heroin, cocaine, meth, various prescription drugs, gambling and even food. Our answer to them should always be: “Get a Nanny, and stop turning the government into one for the rest of us!”
>>>The new law allows physicians to prescribe 2.5 oz. of marijuana every two weeks to >>>patients
“Prescribe” is the wrong word and was the problem with a previous proposition. Marijuana can be recommended.
NORML stands for National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws,
Come on Kierstin do your diligence on checking your facts/grammar!
“Prop. 203 ok’s medical marijuana”
There is no press stylebook that justifies this headline.