By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services/Arizona Daily Star
The organization that funded Arizona’s 2010 medical marijuana initiative says lawmakers who now want voters to scrap the program are missing the point of a study on teen use.
Morgan Fox, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, acknowledged Friday that the report by the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission shows more than one in nine high school students who regularly use the drug said they got it from a legal medical marijuana user.
But Fox pointed out that, overall, teen marijuana use last year is lower than it was in 2010 when the initiative was approved. All that’s changed, he said, is where the students are getting it.
Fox said an argument could be made that every teen who gets their drugs from a medical marijuana user – the report does not distinguish whether it was given to them, sold or stolen – may mean a teen who was not having to buy the drug from a dealer, someone who might be selling more dangerous drugs and is involved with organized crime.
The group is fighting back following publication of the latest justice commission study about teen use of everything from tobacco and alcohol to marijuana, prescription drugs and heroin.
Also: Journalists discuss move to reconsider medical marijuana law on KAET’s “Horizon” Watch:
Medical-pot patients decry how state bans home-growing within 25 miles of dispensaries
A second medical marijuana initiative qualifies for LA ballot
