Marijuana “compassion clubs’ opened in Valley strip malls and office parks when medical marijuana advocates became frustrated by the long delay between the state Medical Marijuana Act passing in 2010 and dispensaries opening.
Tempe police targeted the operator of two such clubs Tuesday, arrested him, serving a series of search warrants and seizing a garage full of mature marijuana plants.
The months-long undercover investigation started before an employee of Top Shelf Medicine, formerly known as the AzGoGreen Co-op, was shot and critically injured on Oct. 25. The employee survived the shooting, but police also served a search warrant a few days later and seized marijuana, Tempe police Commander Noah Johnson said.
While medical marijuana dispensaries are tightly regulated, the compassion clubs are not regulated in any manner, although they generally require members to have state-issued medical marijuana cards to obtain marijuana.
Clubs have been raided and shutdown in unrelated cases in the past in Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert and Phoenix. Two cases have been prosecuted, with defendants placed on probation but hit with stiff fines.
Club operators say the Arizona medical marijuana law permits “patient-to-patient transfers’’ of marijuana, and that card-holders are sharing the marijuana with each other.
Information from The Arizona Republic
If you’d like to discuss medical marijuana, contact Ryan Hurley, director of the Rose Law Group Medical Marijuana Dept., rhurley@roselawgroup.com
