As former Arizona superintendents of public instruction, we have spent our professional careers dedicated to seeking positive outcomes for our state's youth and its education system. Given what we know about the challenges involved in education reform, we are compelled to go on record in vociferous opposition to current efforts to legalize marijuana in Arizona.

Most critically, we take great exception to recent campaign efforts to promote legalized marijuana as a net positive benefit to education reform. Legalizing a drug whose dangers have become more widely known and documented overturns decades of prevention work in our education and health-care systems.

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Not surprisingly, EJ Montini was noticeably vauge in his recent op-ed ("Blowing marijuana smoke ...," Feb. 10) accusing Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy of using "questionable" information in its arguments against legalizing marijuana. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consider the following:

- -- Since Colorado legalized marijuana, teen use has risen dramatically and is now 74 percent higher than the national average. (2015 SAMHSA report/U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)

- -- Since legalization, Colorado has seen an increase in marijuana-related traffic fatalities, hospitalization and emergency visits, as well as marijuana-related calls to poison control centers. (Rocky Mountain HIDTA)

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Last week, dispensary owners in Arizona, and other states, woke up to news their Facebook pages were deleted

At least a handful of medical marijuana dispensaries in Tucson realized their Facebook pages had been deleted on Thursday, Feb. 4 by the social media site, according to the Daily Haze.

Facebook claimed they had banned the pages because the company does not allow any material that "condones drug use."

The Haze spoke to Tucson's Earth's Healing's marketing director, Florence Hijazi, who told the online publication that not having a Facebook page damages the dispensary's business, because their patients check their page on a daily basis for different specials and other updates. Hijazi also told the Haze that, in response to being kicked out of Facebook, Earth's Healing plans to focus more on their Twitter account and their phone app.

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Phoenix Open-Inspired Billboard Aims to Educate Golf Lovers and More on Marijuana Legalization

Backers of a proposed ballot initiative to end marijuana prohibition in Arizona launched a Phoenix Open-inspired billboard on Monday, Feb. 1 to coincide with the kickoff of the golf tournament. It will be up through the end of the tournament on Sunday, Feb. 7.

The Waste Management Phoenix Open is the world's best-attended golf tournament, according to the Scottsdale Convention and Visitors Bureau, which refers to the tournament as the "greatest show on grass."

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Continuing the State's Anti-Marijuana Trend, Several Proposals by GOP Lawmakers Want to Make It Make It Harder for Patients to Access Medical Weed

As it's been the tradition for several years, the 2016 legislative session began with nearly a handful of proposals hoping to burn down the state's medical marijuana industry. Whether any of them will see the light of day is still up for debate, but the bills still fired up medical weed advocates, who are sick and tired of state lawmakers continuously attacking the 2010 voter-approved Arizona Medical Marijuana Act.

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Continuing the state's anti-marijuana trend, several proposals by GOP lawmakers want to make it make it harder for patients to access medical weed

As it's been the tradition for several years, the 2016 legislative session began with nearly a handful of proposals hoping to burn down the state's medical marijuana industry. Whether any of them will see the light of day is still up for debate, but the bills still fired up medical weed advocates, who are sick and tired of state lawmakers continuously attacking the 2010 voter-approved Arizona Medical Marijuana Act.

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Mexican Border City Grapples With Possibility of Legalizing Marijuana

Mexico's Supreme Court ruled this fall that individuals have the right to grow marijuana for personal use, but on the border many are divided over the issue.

Some in this border city, which became a bloody battleground for rival drug cartels fighting for lucrative smuggling routes to the U.S., say they believe decriminalizing marijuana will reduce violence.

"Drug trafficking would go down and there would be fewer people involved in violence," said Raul Parra, a nursing student in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua--on the U.S.-Mexican border across from El Paso, Texas.

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Legalization Nears Ballot; Bills Target Medical Use

As a marijuana-legalization campaign nears its goal of gathering 150,000 valid signatures to get on the statewide November ballot, two Arizona lawmakers are proposing bills that would place limits on its medical use.

Republican Rep. Jay Lawrence of Scottsdale is seeking to restrict access to medical marijuana with a bill that would ban naturopaths and homeopaths from writing prescriptions for the drug, require patients to renew cards every six months and punish those cardholders who sell or give the drug to kids. If approved, it would be referred to the November general election ballot.

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In response to Lisa Olson's Saturday My Turn supporting the legalization of marijuana. I honor her dedicated service as an educator. My grandmother, father and three sisters were all Arizona teachers.

My six children and I are products of Arizona schools. But on this issue, Ms. Olson is off the mark.

Our schools need increased funding. However $40 million in revenue would result in less than one-half-of-one-percent of the overall $10 billion school budget in Arizona.

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In November, Arizona voters will likely have the opportunity to decide whether marijuana should be regulated like alcohol in the state. With this vote on the horizon, it is time to seriously consider the implications of regulating marijuana.

As a parent of five children and educator in Arizona for 25 years, my natural inclination is to wonder what impact it might have on young people in our state.

While opponents of the proposed initiative claim it will be disastrous, the evidence suggests otherwise.

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Cannabis prohibitionists (New Conditions, Dec. 24, 2015), discriminating against citizens, including sick citizens have been a menace long enough. Arizona citizens may stop cannabis prohibitionists from harming sick citizens with a golden opportunity to completely RE-legalize the relatively safe, extremely popular God-given plant cannabis on the next Election Day. Colorado citizens no longer need a doctor's recommendation and a permit, to use cannabis for medical health reasons and every subsequent poll indicates voters continue supporting the end of cannabis prohibition.

Forcing sick citizens to pay for permission to use cannabis amounts to government extortion for protection from police and that sickening policy must end.

- - Stan White

[end]

Labs, Doctors Scrutinized Over Routine Screenings

Doctors frequently order patients to take urine drug tests to safeguard against prescription pain-pill abuse.

But federal investigators and Medicare say these routine tests, designed to ensure patients properly use opioid drugs, have led to questionable billing practices by some for-profit labs, doctors and addiction-treatment centers.

Millennium Health, the nation's largest lab and one that has conducted widespread testing in Arizona, agreed to pay $256 million to the federal government in October to settle claims that it conducted unnecessary testing.

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Cannabis can and should be grown and distributed in a way that is safe for both consumers and communities, but prohibition keeps that commonsense option out of reach. Patients looking for their medical marijuana should not have to resort to the back alley! Now with recent research on the plant they are able to breed new plants that give less of a high and more of a medical value, especially helping our veterans and young people needing the very low side effects of their medicine!

States that have effectively regulated cannabis have already taken billions of dollars out of the hands of criminals and put them in the hands of taxpaying licensees!

Steve Stockwell

Chino Valley

[end]

The State Is Failing to Meet the Requirement to Allow New Medical Conditions

The Arizona Medical Marijuana Act has provided safe legal access to medical cannabis to sick Arizonans since the passage of Prop 203 in November 2010. The program is regulated by the Arizona Department of Health Services. New conditions can be added to the program during 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 to the AZDHS administration. AZDHS has fought hard against all the petitions filed in the history of the program. Only PTSD, with the help of the Arizona Cannabis Nurses Association has been successfully added as a qualifying condition. AZCNA Attorney Ken Sobel appealed the AZDHS denial of PTSD and prevailed.In a huge victory for patient rights, this was special because is it is the first mental health condition to be approved for treatment under the AMMA.

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For Arizonans who have spent their lives and careers seeking positive outcomes for our children's health, education and welfare, E.J. Montini's Dec. 17 column, "Marijuana initiative slyly spreads like weed," must have come as quite a shock.

In arguing for an initiative to legalize marijuana, Montini's source came from a pro-marijuana lobbyist: broadcasting several errors of fact and logic.

The lobbyist stated that those opposed to legalizing marijuana use one tool, "fear." Indeed there is a great deal to fear from making a dangerous drug like marijuana more available, but that fear is actually based on scientific and medical fact.

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Arizona Pot Prohibitionist Seth Leibsohn Says He Won't Really Debate in Favor of Legalization Avriette A right-wing Sedona group advertises what promises to be the throwdown of the year: A debate on the merits of marijuana legalization between staunch pot prohibitionist Sheila Polk on one side and fellow anti-marijuana activist Seth Leibsohn on the other.

Yes, you read that right: The group says Leibsohn will take a pro-legalization stance in the debate.

Leibsohn, a conservative AM-radio talk-show host, is the chair of Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy, a group formed to combat an adult-use legalization measure expected to be on the 2016 Arizona ballot. Yavapai County Attorney Polk is the group's vice chair.

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Arizona is125,000 signatures closer to legalizing marijuana. It's going to happen. While the rest of us have concerned ourselves with presidential politics and terrorism (which sometimes seem indistinguishable) the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol in Arizona has quietly collected more than 125,000 initiative signatures, well on its way to getting the needed 150,000 valid signatures by July 7.

"This is going even more quickly than we thought it would go," deputy campaign manager Carlos Alfaro told me. "We're looking forward to getting the signature process finished and get the campaign out there."

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An Arizona State University student is asking an appeals court to overturn the law that makes it illegal for him to have physician-recommended medical marijuana in his dorm room.

Andre Maestas, 20, an ASU junior and medical-marijuana cardholder, was arrested in 2014 and charged with a felony for having 0.6 grams of weed in his room on campus, roughly the equivalent of one joint.

He is the first to challenge a 2012 statute banning medical marijuana on state university campuses, which the Legislature passed two years after Arizona voters approved a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana.

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As a retired police lieutenant, I can confidently say that Bill Montgomery fails to understand how civil forfeiture laws have played out in reality ( "Arizona won't seize your property unjustly"). Between 1997 and 2013, 87 percent of all assets seized were through civil forfeiture laws, meaning that nearly all instances occurred without requiring law enforcement to seek or obtain a conviction.

Even the original architects of civil forfeiture laws said last year, "The program began with good intentions but now, having failed in both purpose and execution, it should be abolished."

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Paul Avelar and Keith Diggs earn an "F" for grossly distorting Arizona's civil forfeiture laws with a self-serving, special interest "national report card." ("Arizona must end 'policing for profit,' " Our Turn, Thursday).

Their critique conflates civil and criminal legal standards to make the preposterous claim that law enforcement can seize someone's property without due process and force a property owner to prove their innocence in order to get it back. If this were truly the case, courts would have struck down our forfeiture laws years ago.

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