(Disclosure: Rose Law Group represents Life Changers Investments.)
By Ryan Randazzo | Arizona Republic
Arizona lawmakers are considering wide-ranging changes to marijuana regulations that would force the state to test products sold at dispensaries, issue new rural dispensary licenses and make a host of other changes to cannabis oversight.
Two lawmakers cited a recent investigation by The Arizona Republic about contaminated marijuana as the impetus for several of the changes.
But the bill, deemed a “Christmas tree” for all the eclectic elements hung on its branches, faces opposition from the deep-pocketed dispensaries already operating in the state.
Bill supporters say those big dispensaries want to eliminate competition.
House Bill 2050 includes changes such as allowing recreational-only marijuana shops to sell medical marijuana. The marijuana itself is the same, but taxed at a lower rate for medical patients.
Doing this would solve major zoning issues that threaten to derail the social-equity program voters approved in 2020, which gave 26 new licenses to people who were harmed by old laws that prohibited cannabis.
