Arizona passes Prop 203 for medical marijuana

FireDogLake.com:

The marijuana movement can chalk up one victory at the polls for the 2010 Election: Arizona’s Proposition 203 to bring medical marijuana to the state pulled ahead by 4,000 votes in last-minute counting. And as of last night, it’s official: medical marijuana is coming to Arizona.

"Arizona voters have approved Proposition 203, which legalizes marijuana for medical use.

The secretary of state’s unofficial results indicate that the “yes” vote on the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act has won by a narrow margin of 4,341 votes, or 50.13 percent of more than 1.67 million votes counted.

This after Maricopa County officials finished counting about 11,000 outstanding ballots Saturday."

Yes, Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s county delivered the final push over the top for medical marijuana. Arpaio, the country’s biggest hater of undocumented workers, must’ve been angry about the result. Yesterday, Apraio’s office pushed a hard-to-believe story of seizing 1700 lbs. of pot involving a trailer and a limousine.

This is a tremendous victory, as Arizona becomes the 15th state (plus DC) to allow medical marijuana. So what’s next for Arizona?

"We were optimistic that this is what the result was going to be today, and we’re thrilled that it came to reality,” said Andrew Myers, campaign manager for the Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy Project. “Moving forward it’s our responsibility to help implement a program that Arizona can be proud of.” [...]

The measure will allow patients with diseases including cancer, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C and any other “chronic or debilitating” disease that meets guidelines to buy more 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana every two weeks or grow plants.

The patients must get a recommendation from their doctor and register with the Arizona Department of Health Services. The law also allows for no more than 124 marijuana dispensaries in the state."

The state has 120 days to put together regulations, and expects to start reviewing applications for the 124 allowed dispensaries as soon as April.

We’re incredibly pleased about this result; Just Say Now activists worked with the Prop 203 campaign and the Marijuana Policy Project, including our phone bank tool that placed calls to thousands of Arizona voters. In as tight a race as this, every vote counted, and we are proud to have helped put Prop 203 over the top.

Finally, a fun fact: the opposition to Prop 203 only raised $20,000, and more than $13,000, or 65% of that funding, came from the Arizona Cardinals NFL team.