Camp Verde Bugle
by Howard Fischer
The state’s top health official is weighing new regulations to ensure that users of medical marijuana snacks and drinks know when to stop.
Will Humble said he may require dispensaries to certify that an employee has discussed with the customer the effects of the product being bought. And Humble, the state’s health director, said he exploring the use of what might be called “secret shoppers’ to ensure that customers are being told what they need to know to remain safe.
Humble said Arizona laws and regulations already require dispensary “agents’ to talk with customers. But he conceded it’s likely that medical marijuana buyers have been pretty much left on their own to discover how much they needed to inhale, whether smoking or “vaping” it, to get the effect they wanted.
“It goes straight from your lungs into your bloodstream, right to your brain,’ Humble said. “So it’s easier to self-regulate in that regard.”
Humble said edible forms of medical marijuana are the best from a health perspective, as they don’t require inhaling all the fumes.
“But they’re much harder to regulate the dose,” he said. “So you have a bigger opportunity with edibles to overdose on the medical marijuana because you continue to eat either a brownie that was more potent than you realized or more brownies than you probably should have.”
Attorney Ryan Hurley, who represents some dispensary owners, said he concurs with Humble’s concern that there may be a need for actual testing of products.
“There’s no way to assure that the dose in one edible is going to be consistent with the dose in the same brand in the same type of product,” he said.
To further discuss medical marijuana, Ryan Hurley can be reached at rhurley@roselawgroup.com
