Debilitating Conditions Hearing
Friday afternoon we’re holding a public comment session about whether or not to add four new debilitating conditions to the medical marijuana program. The comments should center on scientific studies done on how marijuana affects Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Migraines, Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. We're looking for peer-reviewed, published studies that show the benefit or the danger of marijuana specific to [...]
First Lady Recognizes Empower
The First Lady’s Let’s Move! Child Care initiative recognized our Empower program for exceptional work to promote young children’s health and prevent childhood obesity in the early care and education setting last week. We were selected for recognition for carrying out exceptional work to promote and implement the goals of Let’s Move! Child Care, including using creative strategies, engaging families in [...]
Tightening AZ’s Waistline
The CDC, along with HBO, The Institutes of Medicine and several private partners created a series of documentaries, called Weight of the Nation which aired last week, but you can still watch them all online. We wrote a feature about our own Matt Gainey- who made tremendous strides to change his health. Matt is just one of many success stories in [...]
Fire Season Here Already
Our Department plays a significant role in the response for major wildland fires… and we’re monitoring the current fires closely to make sure that we cover our bases. Our initial roles mostly include environmental health functions, especially surrounding health risks from smoke, sanitary conditions and food safety in shelters and ensuring that all of our licensed facilities are OK. You can [...]
AZ Child Dies from Flu
Most people think that when the weather warms up, we can stop worrying about the flu. But it’s still here. Recently, a young Gila County child died from influenza. It's the only pediatric death from flu in Arizona this year, last year 5 children under 18 died. Adult flu deaths are not tracked by the state. This year’s flu season [...]
Week 1 for Dispensary App’s
We’ll wrap up our first week of accepting medical marijuana dispensary Registration Certificate applications today. We’ve received about 40 applications so far this week- and our team has been doing an excellent job of reviewing the applications for “Administrative Completeness” this week- so much so that we don’t even have a backlog (yet). Any applications that are “Administratively Incomplete” (in other [...]