Today I was served with a lawsuit that challenges the State (and the Department) for not implementing the dispensary portion of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act. The case, filed in the AZ Court of Appeals, asks a judge to order us to follow the rules that we published on April 14 and begin accepting dispensary [...]
A prospective dispensary applicant came to our offices this morning in an effort to submit an application for a dispensary registration certificate. We declined to accept the application because, as I wrote on Friday, we won’t be accepting dispensary registration certificate applications until the outcome of legal action filed last week. There were several members [...]
In light of recent communication from the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, the Governor asked the Attorney General to file a suit this week asking for a declaratory judgment from a federal court regarding the legality of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act and our Rules. We had been planning to begin accepting dispensary applications beginning next [...]
We understand that the Governor and the Attorney General are seeking a declaratory judgment in federal court regarding the implementation of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act. When further information is available, ADHS will update you. Until then, the Department will continue to issue Qualifying Patient and Designated Caregiver Registry Cards on our website.
The Legislature completed the Regular Session a couple of weeks ago, and Monday marked the deadline for the Governor to make her decision about each bill that came to her desk: sign the bill into law, veto the bill, or do nothing and let the bill become law. Last week I summarized the new laws [...]
The U.S. Attorney for Arizona wrote me a letter today about how the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act and our rules interface with federal law. As you know, Arizona voters passed the Act last November and ADHS created a program to clearly carry out the voters’ wishes. While we've done what we can to set the stage for a medical [...]
The Legislature completed the Regular Session last week. They've passed numerous bills. The Governor has signed many of them, but some are still waiting for her consideration and signature. Below are the new laws that have been signed by the Governor that are related to our mission: HB 2585: Controlled Substances; Marijuana; Monitoring This law requires [...]
We filed our official rules for regulating medical marijuana with the Secretary of State last week. The official rules include a few clarifications that weren’t in the set of unofficial rules that we posted on March 28. The clarifications are reflected in the Arizona Medical Marijuana Rules, Medical Marijuana Act AZ Statutes and the Frequently [...]
We've had a lot of traffic on our Medical Marijuana Registration webpage today - some of you may have had some difficulty uploading photos or had a "session expired" message pop up. Thanks to your help, we're working to resolve these bumps in the road. If you have had problems this morning, you may want [...]
Today was Opening Day for the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act. We rolled out our brand-new website at 8 a.m. today and began processing applications for Qualifying Patient and Designated Caregiver Registry Identification Cards. The system went live at 8:00 a.m. and we completed our first qualified patient card at about 8:30. Our first applicant was a [...]
