Controlled Substances A few years ago, an Arizona law was passed that established a Controlled Substances Prescription Monitoring Program which requires pharmacies and medical practitioners who dispense Schedule II, III, and IV controlled substances to a patient, to report prescription information to the Board of Pharmacy on a weekly basis. The purpose of this legislation [...]
Under the provisions of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act we had 120 days to get the entire program up and running. A short timeframe for this complex program (to say the least). That gives us until close of business on April 13, 2011 to have everything ready. That means we’ll need to finish the Rulemaking [...]
As I was looking through a weekly publication in the Phoenix area I noticed that there are several physicians that are already advertising their services for medical marijuana evaluations and certifications for a fee. Some of the ads and websites seem to imply that the certifications that physicians are writing right now will be [...]
As we get closer to implementing the AZ Medical Marijuana Act in mid-April, I thought it might be a good idea to post some information that may be helpful to physicians and prospective qualifying patients. Over the last weeks, I’ve been sent a number of articles and sources of information about the medical use of [...]
We received more than 1,500 comments on our second draft of the medical marijuana rules- bring the total number of comments to more than 3,000. We’ve posted all the comments on our hub website http://www.azdhs.gov/prop203/ (with personal information and foul language removed). We’ll be examining the suggestions over the coming weeks and expect to publish [...]
We had the second of four public hearings on the draft rules in Tempe on Tuesday afternoon. We got a lot of good input from folks and there were some good suggestions to improve the draft rule. The most valuable comments came from people that offered concrete ideas for ways we can improve the rule's [...]
We’ll be holding four public comment meetings for the Medical Marijuana Rules next week. Public comment meetings are the part of the Rulemaking process whereby “an agency shall afford persons the opportunity to submit in writing statements, arguments, data and views on the proposed rule, with or without the opportunity to present them orally”. We [...]
A number of published studies have found that using marijuana (and other psychoactive substances) is associated with an earlier onset of psychotic illness (notice I said “is associated with” rather than “causes”). National mental health surveys have repeatedly found more substance use, especially cannabis use, among people with a diagnosis of a psychotic disorder. A [...]
Three cheers for our interdisciplinary team that’s been working hard on the latest round of Administrative Code to implement the new medical marijuana law that will take effect April 14. We changed lots of provisions since the latest draft that we released on January 31. Here are just a few highlights: The new draft rules [...]
Medical Marijuana Public Comments Posted We received more than 1,500 comments on our initial proposed rules to regulate medical marijuana. All the comments (over 1,000 pages) are posted on our http://www.azdhs.gov/prop203/ website for viewing. Our team is very busy reviewing the comments and suggestions looking for good ideas that will help build a more effective program. By [...]
