Pubdate: Thu, 22 Nov 2012
Source: Arizona Daily Star (Tucson, AZ)
Copyright: 2012 Arizona Daily Star
Contact:  http://www.azstarnet.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/23
Author: Kimberly Matas

TUCSON'S FIRST DISPENSARY FOR MEDICAL POT GETS APPROVAL

Owner still must decide when to open Broadway-Kolb site in Gaslight
Plaza

Tucson's first medical marijuana dispensary has received state
approval to open. Now the owner has to decide on a date.

"Right now we haven't decided when we will open up," said Rouben
Beglarian. "We're going to have a couple meetings with staff members
and see when they feel comfortable."

Beglarian's dispensary, Green Medicine, 112 S. Kolb Road at Broadway,
in the Gaslight Plaza Shopping Center, passed inspection Tuesday. He
received an email Wednesday from the Arizona Department of Health
Services confirming he is allowed to open for business. He expects to
start selling before the end of the year.

Statewide, 98 dispensary certificates have been issued. Two
dispensaries - Green Medicine and one in Phoenix - have been given
approval to open by the state health department; four others,
including one in the Tucson area, will be inspected in the next few
weeks, said Harmony Duport, who heads the state Department of Health
Services' inspections office and oversees the dispensary program.

Once doors open, the clock will start running down on patients living
within within 25 miles of Green Medicine. Per state law, once a
dispensary opens, a medical-marijuana cardholder who grows his own
product must cease cultivation once his patient card expires, Duport
said. The cards have to be renewed annually.

Caregivers, who are licensed to grow for others, can continue to
cultivate medical marijuana within the 25-mile dispensary radius
provided their patients live outside the radius. If patients or
caregivers have leftover product or plants once they can no longer
grow marijuana, they can donate the inventory to a dispensary or to
other patients who are still allowed to grow their own, Duport said.

Arizona voters passed the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act in 2010. It
required the Department of Health Services to create a
medical-marijuana program. Qualifying patients began applying for
identification cards on April 14, 2011.

Under the law, the state can authorize up to 126 dispensaries.
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MAP posted-by: Matt