PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich says officials are not allowed to use public resources to campaign for or against ballot measures.

The revised opinion issued Thursday replaces one issued in May but yanked after it was criticized. It said officials could "educate" the public about ballot measures but can't urge that people vote in a particular matter.

The original opinion was requested by Maricopa and Yavapai County prosecutors who oppose a marijuana legalization proposal.

Critics said officials might view the opinion as opening the door for them to seek to change the outcome of elections by influencing voters.

The new opinion outlines a two-part legal test to determine if campaigning by public officials is allowed. It is designed to balance their free speech rights with bans electioneering using public money.

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MMJ vs. Legalization

It is a sad but true fact in the world today that politics, lobbying, and action take money, lots and lots of money.

This means that to enforce the will of popular opinion we must band together as a cohesive force and make our voices one. There has been a long history of infighting in the cannabis industry.

If NORML and other groups of their day had worked together in the 1970s this conversation might be long over. This didn't happen.

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Three Medical-Marijuana Companies Hope to Tap into City's Wealth of Patients

Three medical-marijuana companies are eyeing the Scottsdale Airpark for new dispensary locations as they look to tap into one of Arizona's highest concentrations of patients authorized to use the drug.

Two proposed dispensaries are on the south side of the airport's runways, while a third is planned near the Scottsdale Quarter office and shopping complex, according to city records. The latter has already been approved for a permit, while a City Council vote is likely coming for the others.

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(AP) - Arizona courts appear at odds over the possible impact of legalized medical marijuana on the ability of police to conduct searches prompted solely by officers smelling the drug.

In one case, a three judge panel of the state Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that a police search of a man's car during a traffic stop was permissible because an officer smelled burnt marijuana.

The panel rejected a defense argument that legalized medical marijuana means police must assume that any marijuana they smell or see is lawful until shown otherwise.

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The Arizona Department of Health Services has announced that it will accept petitions from July 27-July 31 to add new debilitating conditions to those already approved by the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act. The AMMA itself calls for open application periods twice a year, but the rules surrounding the process and the specific standards by which these conditions are approved or denied are largely left up to the DHS administration and these rules can be changed.

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ACLU Says Profits From Seized Goods Are Put into Slush Fund

Pinal County attorneys and sheriff's officials are accused of funneling profits gleaned by seized property into a slush fund to bankroll personnel costs, retirement benefits and County Attorney Lando Voyles' personal home-security system, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday.

The suit, filed by attorneys from Perkins Coie and the American Civil Liberties Union, alleges Voyles, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu and court officials have exploited Arizona's forfeiture laws and violated citizens' constitutional rights to due process.

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The wording in the complaint filed in federal court is blunt. "This racket has to stop," write attorneys from the ACLU, the ACLU of Arizona and the firm of Perkins Coie. They aim to shut down a statewide operation that each year confiscates millions of dollars in property from Arizona residents and keeps the money for itself. "We expect a fight," attorney Jean-Jacques Cabou said. "There is a lot at stake here for very powerful people." That's especially true knowing the people running this so-called "racket" are prosecutors and law-enforcement agencies.

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Colorado Is Giving Businesses Another Way to Bring Marijuana to the Table

Mason Tvert of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) and attorney Brian Vicente are two of the champions of the 2012 Amendment 64 (The Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol Act) which legalized and regulated the use and sale of recreational marijuana in Colorado.

Now the dynamic duo's new ballot measure, The Limited Social Marijuana Consumption Initiative, is intended to allow private businesses to allow adults to use marijuana at designated establishments, such as bars, restaurants and hotels.

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An EJ Montini piece about vaccinations contains noteworthy quotes.: "Science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children. The science is sound."

. "Parental choice can't allow one parent to put another parent's child at risk."

I volunteer in substance abuse education and prevention. I noted these quotes because people give the risks of marijuana use a pass on this same line of reasoning. Yet, science is clear that marijuana is harmful, especially to children. The science is sound. Parental choice to legalize and use marijuana puts other parents' children at risk.

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SAN LUIS, Ariz. - Having gained the city council's approval this week, a medical marijuana dispensary could open sometime in 2016, pending the OK from the state.

Finding no legal reasons to block the venture, the San Luis City Council on Wednesday approved two conditional use permits sought by Choice Cannabis, one to operate the dispensary on Archibald Street, next to the border, and the second to cultivate marijuana in an industrial building located along Highway 95 on the city's north side.

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MMJ Is Here to Stay and Is Legal, but It Depends on What Public Agency You Talk to and That Needs to Change

Friday, July 10 will go down in history but not for the same reasons I would have wished. There was a state of the art social event planned that had to be cancelled, well not entirely cancelled, just the state of the art part.

Counter Culture Events AZ planned and promoted the Fire and Ice 7/10 dab party. For those who don't know July 10 is the new 4/20. The reason is if you turn 710 upsidedown and backwards it spells OIL. Hash oil is one name for some of the popular and potent cannabis extracts in the market these days. The event features three local bands including Alter Der Ruine who is about to embark on a nationwide tour opening for Haujobb, other local acts Mother's Lament and Intertwine, who have a Native American radio station, will also play.

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Last week, Oregon's new law legalizing recreational marijuana came into effect, -making it the fourth state to legalize, following Alaska, Washington and Colorado. Recreational marijuana is also legal in the District of Columbia. Thousands of Oregonian growers, dispensary owners and marijuana enthusiasts gathered at the Weed the People event to celebrate what many called a historic moment.

The main impetus for the event was a result of people seeing green-and I'm not talking about marijuana. As free doobies were passed around the event, so were business cards among the "ganjapreneurs" who gathered there to network. These eager capitalists are hoping to be ahead of the market when retail cannabis sales begin, likely next fall.

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Groundbreaking Program Was Quietly Ended Last Year

Phoenix police pioneered an antidoping policy that took hold in police agencies across the country when the department implemented random steroid testing nine years ago, but the agency suddenly and quietly shut the program down last year. Frank Lloyd Wright (left), Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim, with a model of the latter's namesake museum.

Department administrators cited excessive costs and test results that were muddled by the prevalence of legal supplements and testosterone that was legally prescribed to officers.

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TUCSON (AP) - Authorities in the border city of Nogales, Arizona, believe smugglers were using an international sewage line to transport drugs into the U.S. from Mexico when the pipe became clogged, sending gallons of waste through an illegal tunnel and into a house and local businesses.

City officials discovered waste coming out of the house near the border with Mexico on Sunday. City Manager Shane Dille said there was so much waste that it was oozing from the front door and side of the house.

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TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - Authorities in the Arizona border city of Nogales believe smugglers were using an international sewage line to transport drugs into the U.S. from Mexico when the pipe became clogged, sending gallons of waste through an illegal tunnel and into a house and local businesses.

City officials discovered waste coming out of the house near the border with Mexico on Sunday. City Manager Shane Dille said there was so much waste that it was oozing from the front door and side of the house.

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Let me start by saying that I was an investigator who headed up the juvenile narcotic bureau for a major city in northern California. In 1960, I was assigned to work drug abuse problems that was occurring in our local school district.

In my 20 plus years of working with countless amounts of juveniles and parents whose sons or daughters were involved in drug use, I saw on a daily basis how marijuana affected the juvenile, as well as the effects it had on the family. In my experience, I see marijuana as a gateway drug. The user is introduced to other people involved in the drug culture, who want to turn these stoners on to other drugs.

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Marijuana causes kids to kill themselves! It makes IQs drop!! If children accidentally eat edibles, they will be poisoned!!!

OK, now that I have your attention, I just want to say that none of the above is proven to be true. But Sheila Polk, Yavapai County attorney, and her anti-drug MATForce group has spread such propaganda in statewide programs and billboards.

As legalization spreads across this country, many of the early biased studies requiring a negative end result to obtain funding are being disproven. For instance, the assertion that marijuana impacts IQ has been shown untrue by a long-term Australian study and a recent Harvard University report. The Harvard study shows the impact of heavy marijuana use on learning and memory disappears within 28 days of stopping use. Heavy alcohol users, by comparison, have memory deficits for months, or even years.

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I am truly sorry to read about Lisa James' brother's problems with addiction (Monday My Turn).

However, she misses the point. The apparent difference between her and her brother is his inability to regulate his tendency for addictive behavior.

So, because Ms. James has had a bad experience with an addict in her life, and does not want to see her child go down the same unfortunate path, she feels justified to advocate that the state make the choice for all adults about recreational cannabis use.

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SAN LUIS, Ariz. - For the second time in less than a month, the San Luis Planning and Zoning Commission is opposing a request to open a medicinal marijuana dispensary in the city's downtown.

The commission voted 5-1 on Tuesday to recommend that the San Luis City Council deny a permit request made by A&F Home Builders for a dispensary to be located in a commercial building at 708 N. Archibald St.

Commissioners said their recommendation was based not on any objections to a dispensary but rather to its proposed location in what is described as an area of heavy traffic downtown.

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Marijuana is not harmless. Of course, it isn't. It is sad that its proponents claim that it is. Having said that, the question still is, should it be illegal?

Have our current harsh laws against marijuana kept even one person from trying it who wanted to? Have the laws made it difficult to obtain? We spend billions of tax dollars - yes, billions - every year sending out the SWAT teams and busting rinky-dink potheads who are lighting up in their own homes ... has this had any effect at all on consumption and demand in America? Are we winning the War on Drugs?

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