If Trump wins, some of us will need it. If Clinton wins, some of us will need it. And since none of us knows for sure how the election in November will go, we ALL need to vote for ... legalizing marijuana. Stop the presses! Finally, something we agree on. The signatures are in and have been validated. Arizona voters will get to decide whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use at the same time we choose between Donald or Hillary. At least, we'll get to make that decision if the agents of fear, who want to steal your right to vote, don't prevail in court. [continues 371 words]
It won't be easy clearing 80 years of smoke from a room. Not marijuana smoke -- the smoke of propaganda. The smoke of fear. The smoke already being blown in our faces by opponents of Arizona's Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which is working to get an initiative legalizing small amounts of marijuana on the November ballot. It shouldn't be any surprise that there is an early poll on the issue showing that the initiative probably wouldn't pass, particularly since the poll was released by the group trying to defeat the initiative. [continues 272 words]
We live in a state where it appears that marijuana smokers are more inclined to offer tax money for education than state legislators. On the bright side, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol announced this week that it has collected more than 200,000 signatures for a November ballot initiative that would end marijuana prohibition in Arizona. The campaign needs to collect 150,642 valid signatures. A local backer of the initiative sent me a note saying, "Is 200,000 signatures a milestone or a milestoned?" [continues 393 words]
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." [continues 413 words]
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. [continues 401 words]
If you happened to read a guest column in Tuesday's Arizona Republic by Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk ("Safe pot? Tell that to the 62 kids who died") you might have come away believing marijuana use killed 62 kids in Arizona in 2013. Polk has no real proof of that, of course, hedging her bet with the word "associated." All her essay proves is that Polk wants to be like ... me. The Yavapai prosecutor is serving as vice chairman of Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy and is doing everything she can to make the case against marijuana legalization. She's not making that argument in a hall of justice, however, but in the court of public opinion, where (as I well know) a bland set of facts can be made palatable with a heaping helping of spiced baloney. [continues 406 words]
Arizona laws says, essentially, an elected politician can't overtly try to sway an election while on taxpayer time and on the taxpayer's dime. Sort of the way that you or I would get fired -- justifiably -- if we told our bosses we'd be out of the office a few hours handing out pamphlets for a politician or a political cause. Elected officials get paid to work for the people, not to push personal agendas. Unless, apparently, they're afraid their side might lose. [continues 432 words]
State officials were at the Arizona Supreme Court this week to defend a law that punishes innocent people. Welcome to Arizona! Or, if you've lived here a long time, like me: So what else is new? Under Arizona's DUI law, a person is guilty of impaired driving if he has any metabolite of marijuana in his system. However, the compounds left in a person's system after smoking marijuana are not all the same. One of them makes a person high and lasts for a few hours. Another is not "psychoactive," meaning it does not cause impairment. But it can linger in a person's system for up to a month. [continues 579 words]
What if you could get a DUI for having had a few drinks two weeks ago? Crazy, right? Except it's happening. Not with alcohol, but with marijuana. Drivers from Arizona and at least nine other states, including Utah, Iowa, Indiana, Delaware and Rhode Island, are going to jail, paying big fines and losing their licenses after having gotten driving-under-the-influence citations when blood tests prove they were not high. "It makes no sense," says attorney Michael Alarid III, who is representing a man charged in Arizona. "But this is how prosecutors and the courts are interpreting the law. And the legislature doesn't appear to want to change it. So we're hoping we can get the issue before the state Supreme Court." [continues 626 words]
