By Lindsey Collom | The Arizona Republic
The complexity of the legal debate over whether federal law trumps the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act has prompted the state’s prosecuting attorneys association to withdraw its support of legislation their members had helped craft to protect children from accidentally eating medical cannabis.
A bill to enforce bland wrapping on candy containing marijuana will likely die, as attorneys say that it’s too difficult to keep legislating medical marijuana in an atmosphere of legal challenges and that the issue needs to be decided in the courts. The same argument was made last week when a bill to require police to destroy medical marijuana seized in criminal investigations was withdrawn by its sponsor.
The Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys’ Advisory Council voted last week to no longer support Senate Bill 1440. The council did so because it conflicts with an argument prosecutors are making in a case before the Arizona Supreme Court stemming from when a Yuma County Superior Court judge ordered the Sheriff’s Office to return marijuana seized from a California woman who had permission to use the drug for medical purposes.
In an amicus “friend of the court” brief filed earlier this month, Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk argued that because the state’s medical marijuana law sets up a procedure for its cultivation, distribution and use, it is “in complete conflict with the federal law and regulations that govern the classification, production, distribution, marketing and use of drugs and medicine in the United States.”
If you’d like to discuss medical marijuana, contact Ryan Hurley, director of the Rose Law Group Medical Marijuana Dept., rhurley@roselawgroup.com
