Last week, I wrote about the need for research into the positive effects of marijuana. I chose this as my first topic because of how important I believe it to be. If I had to list in order of importance that would be issue 1A and issue 1B would be the decriminalization of marijuana.
This is another area where progress has been made, but there is still much work ahead.
Many states are hoping to have votes on marijuana laws this election. Our state is no exception. The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol, a ballot-initiative backed by the Washington-based Marijuana Policy Project, has the same formula led to legalizing weed in Colorado. MPP has helped states lobby for and pass reform of Marijuana laws since founded in 1995.
The group filed a ballot initiative with the Arizona Secretary of State last April. They have since been collecting signatures for the initiative to make the 2016 ballot.
According to mpp.org‘s last update, the campaign had collected over 125,000 of the 230,000 voter signatures the campaign wants to get. A total of 150,642 valid signatures of registered voters are needed by July. Valid signatures are key, this is why MPP has a goal of 230,000 signatures. “Signatures are often invalidated because they are illegible or because the signer provided incomplete or inaccurate information,” MPP said. (Visit their website for more information on where to sign a petition if you haven’t added your signature to the initiative.)
Make sure your voice is not only heard but gets the chance to be heard.
This is my plea to anyone who supports MPP’s campaign or one similar to it. There are currently 11 sponsored bills relating to marijuana laws trying to make the ballot, according to mpp.org.
Arizona’s vote to legalize medical marijuana in 2010, or Prop 203, should be reminder needed to make sure that we all exercise our right to vote.
Prop 203, another ballot campaign backed by MPP, narrowly passed by less than half of a percent, or less than 4,500 votes, six years ago.
California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada all also have similar MPP supported ballot initiatives for 2016.
MPP intends to use the legislative process to pass similar bills in Vermont and Rhode Island. If passed, it would be the first time a state legalized marijuana through the legislative process.
Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire and Texas are also states that MPP plans to target.
If you are like me, then this all sounds like steps in the right direction, but the most important thing is that Arizona takes advantage of these initiatives.
Polls taken across the state show how close votes on marijuana will be.
A poll from the Behavior Research Center last June showed 53 percent favor legal personal possession of marijuana. Because of the margin of error this may not be a majority.
This November we will be electing a new president and history shows that voter turnout is much higher when this is the case. Let’s make sure we are part of that turnout.
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2016.
Sorry, I am not like you Mary Jane Doe. Almost all of those a states you have mentioned have abandoned MPP and it policies. Since being taken over and the board of directors changed since most of the successes took place.
Dan Riffle, the former director of federal policy at the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a legalization advocacy group, recently said that these concerns pushed him to leave MPP. In a revealing interview, he said that “the industry is taking over the movement.”
I can read and understand this proposed legislation is nothing at all in any way close to the legalization done in Colorado, and I doubt your integrity to refer to it as similar.
MPP has attempted to create a cartel in Ohio In Maine and have been soundly defeated. This MPP has folded medical into a agency that has no defined responsibility to study the positive effects. This MPP is a washington based political action committee a PAC and a legislative lobbing consultant group set on building a cartel if you will in AZ.
Mpp will use every unscrupulous term to define their reasoning for doing this action. They just want to help the sick the poor and the infirm. MPP’s proposal want to control the hemp production the smoke shops, the vap stores, the agriculture growing stores, the growing, the processing the distribution, the manufacturer the licensing, while applying a licencing to each of these businesses on top of any local ones that apply when we already have agencies that do that very thing.
What this MPP proposed “legalize like Alcohol” will do is build a taxing licencing revenue collection agency. This agency
” Department of license and Controls” immune from any oversight or audit till 2022 as stated in their proposal. It strips most of the protections given in the 2010 law. It will no longer call Marijuana useful in medical situation. I will vote for the status quo before this line of lies unscrupulous people.
There is not one thing in MPP’s proposal that promotes the positive effects or the study to do so. The only Mandate MPP’s is asking for is market & revenue control with police and judicial powers. For that they promise some monies to Education when they show a profit after building this depart of Marijuana. That is it NO! money for study of positive effects. This is a Trojan horse, The the Emperor has a new set of clothes. Judas and 20 coins of silver
Here is an excellent article on who is behind these marijuana initiatives. We need to protect the children from these charlatans. http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/201…
I would rather not see legalization pass than have the MPP’s version passed. Robert Ruckman, above, exposes some of the many problems I see with their proposal.
Despite the author’s claim, the MPP’s proposed initiative in Arizona has very little resemblance to the Colorado law. A friend of mine who is the CFO (and also a CPA) of a large grower in Colorado says the success of these laws depends upon two things. How well the law is written, and how well it is implemented. You can not make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. If we are going to pass a marijuana legalization law, let’s do it right, and not grab the first thing that comes along.
There are 8 votes in this family that will NOT be voting for MPP’s version. AZFMR or none for now.
Arizona is unwinnable. Too many Republicans.
It’s a sham people wouldn’t support the only viable chance of legalization and support mpp. It allows home grow, new licenses and more cultivation. Since it wouldn’t allow you to stand on the corner and sell some people don’t like it. They’re crazy. Arizona will never support expansive legalization. Do they not understand the electorate?!!!! They’d rather cry, go home and continue to send people to jail and wait for the nonexistent future where their pie in sky ballot proposal passes. It won’t. Ever. Who would have thought the “free weed” crowd is for continuing to send people to jail. Pass it and then work to fix it. The fight always continues.
MPP’s Initiative does NOT allow home growing..
MPP’s Initiative only guarantees that the existing MEDICAL Marijuana Dispensary owners will get any of the new Recreational Marijuana business licenses.
NO OLIGOPOLY, NO THANK YOU!
Allowing the Medical Marijuana Dispensaries to monopolize the Arizona Marijuana Market is bad for both Marijuana consumers AND for people who want to get a Marijuana business license!!
AZFMR’s Initiative does NOT allow people to “stand on the corner and sell weed”, as Kathy claims.
However, AZFMR’s Initiative DOES allow anyone who wants to sell marijuana to obtain a Recreational Marijuana Retailer License. Even people who don’t own a Medical Marijuana Dispensary can get a Recreational Marijuana Retailer license in AZFMR’s Initiative.
MPP believes that the guy who has been selling Marijuana illegally for the past 15 years should be thrown in PRISON.
AZFMR believes that the guy who has been selling Marijuana illegally for the past 15 years should GET A MARIJUANA BUSINESS LICENSE.
How can we expect the BLACK MARKET to end if we ONLY allow the Medical Marijuana Dispensaries to obtain the Recreational Marijuana Business licenses?!?!?
When people want to sell Marijuana, but they are unable to get a Marijuana retailer License under MPP’s Initiative, they will continue to sell Marijuana illegally. MPP’s Initiative literally does LESS THAN NOTHING to eliminate the black market activity.
When you consider that MPP’s Initiative makes ANY black market activity a FELONY, it becomes quite clear that MPP’s Initiative ONLY protects the Medical Marijuana Dispensaries.
MPP’s Initiative offers NOTHING for the Marijuana Consumers and for people who want to obtain a Recreational Marijuana business license.
Please consider reading both of the Initiatives if you want a better understanding of what each Initiative actually does.
Voting against legalization because it isn’t the perfect bill is idiocy. You might as well cut off your nose to spite your face. It is embarrassing how a handful of activist loons continue to fight the very cause they supposedly support. Hopefully we can beat these idiots back the same way they had to beat them back in Oregon, Colorado, and Washington. These idiots won’t be satisfied, ever. The crap they support will never pass, and legalization will never move forward. Like children with pie in the sky fantasies, grow up for God’s sake.
Just vote/sign for Safer AZ instead of MPP. Seriously, our last correspondent was at least in the know that there were competing organizations in the game, or is there a conflict of interest in favor of MPP here? I am in full agreement that the MPP is all for “Big Weed” we need big weed like big banks, big ag, and big pharma. No thanks. Still, from a justice standpoint, I will vote yes on whatever makes it to the ballot. Let’s just hope it’s MPP’s competition instead.
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Anyone that is a true advocate has to support both initiatives. AZFMR’s is great and I hope it makes it to the ballot. But if it doesn’t that’s no reason not support MPP. YES it does support home grow. That’s good enough for me.
I hear alot of good stories how it’s help with cancer, depression, artheritis etc. i support this and hopes it comes legal!! I pray for those that are against this don’t end up with cancer!!
A siimple argument against this legalization. This proposal limits the supply and puts medical of those who need it in competion with the Recreational NAPA Valley high end shelf. So why would a company grow for the least amount of return? Simple if you made matches controlled who made them and the quanity . Why make a 100 matches that costs $0.10 >> when you can make 10 charge $1.00 and the cost to make a match is cheaper, less area, less labor, less taxes being paid less contributions in labor burden. Would it not be wiser to change the criminal code rather than give the farm?
I mean really if those that think they can change it later. look at the criminal code and how it is administered diffrently in counties. Change it later yea right we have a Saul Goodman giving legal advise for his bussniess intrests DUH. And that is the same system they want to maintain just have a layer before. like the Department of Transportation. Really does Marijuana warrant the importance of a department like the Department of Transportation? Like the Department of Revenue? The Deparmentof Agriculture? The Department of Public safety? Department of Health Science? I just dont understand why we need a nother department for Marijuana>>>>> the realty is this is not about simple posession this is about a huge control grab state wide. A new department that for the next decade will be paying legal fees to just validate it existance. That is alot up in smoke that could go to mandated study for the positive effects. Monies that could go to education, Monies that would put more disposal cash in family that have a dependent one. Monies in a family spent on the betterment of children.
I for one dont care about the vap places smoke shops. I dont care about Paradise Valley wanting state protection to keep out what they consider problems, It’s their city their problem. I dont care if Douglas has to many dispensaries it Douglas problem. What I do care about is in one county prosecuted simple posession diffrently than the other, and this is the solution to prosectural discression misconduct ? I guess if I dont believe this I am classified as an idiot plagued with idiocy
It is a false presumption thinking that conservatives would be against legalization. I have always been a conservative. A true conservative is for less government in our lives. I as many of my friends and family understand that regulating Marijuana like alcohol makes sense and has many benefits in doing so. Power to the people I say.
People just dont get it this is NOT about marijuana this is about money and control. Why do the People of Arizona need a special department to control this when all these other state fold it into the existing departments. Why is Arizona so special that it needs to rebuild the taxiation police judicial medical basically the whole of state goverment to sell marijuana?
The terms being used here Democrate Republican Progressive Conseratve is just a misnomer to confuse and isolate. The whole dynamic of the social fabric is just a market manifested ideology there is no button here. I fine myself now in what some call the golden years. In those years I have learned what stick to gwab and more important what end.
This is just a giant plea bargain and the result if you cant afford to pay tribute? (FU)
Voting for both is ideal. However, MPP is heavily funded. Money & self-interest is the lever that moves people. People are on here complaining about putting their hand in the next man’s cookie jar and how much than can or can’t grow. Regardless what the state says your taking a risk if you’re doing anything but consuming it. That includes everybody entertaining the idea that they’re going to grow in there closet all the way up to the dispensary owner or the cashier. They make people send their fingerprints to the same database you would send for a ccw or a CDL, thus putting peoples gun rights or career in jeopardy. If they legalize an ounce, If, just be happy they changed their mind about cuffing & stuffin your ass and making you wear pink draws.
To those who say they don’t want their precious children to get a hold of it. Reality check if kids want it they will get it. Just like banning guns if a criminal wants a gun they will get it. It’s called ” School” So unless you want to hold your kids hand all through school, kids know where to get it. There’s been a war on drugs for how many decades now’ I’m news flash we still have drugs. Duuuh
I’ve had a felony since 2007 for 5 grams of cannabis and was sentenced to a year in prison out of Graham county Az. And it effects my life to this day. So obviously now I can’t even vote for what I know would be the right thing for Arizona for so many different reasons.
Really in Graham county the prosecuted you with a felony. I was arrested in Gila county 1976 with 2 ounces and given probation $750.00. It was so lame. Probation officer gave me on sheet of paper a form that I had to copy and mail in my probation report monthly. I sent in 2 total.
The probation office called me up and asked why I had not mailed in any more forms plus I had not paid on the fine. I responded; If I pay off the fine I would like 2 for one time on probation. This time I went to the probation office. With cash in hand I saw my officer turned in my report and wala off probation.
This is the point if felonies are differently applied from one county to the next this is a problem a BIG problem. Then layered with multiple felonies of paraphernalia and what not.
MPP’s proposal continues and in many cases amplifies the felonies this is the same lies and smoke that got us here in the first place.