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Arizona Becomes 15th Medical Marijuana State (Press Release)

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                                                 

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

Arizona Becomes 15th Medical Marijuana State

Provisional Ballots Secure Victory for Measure That Will Allow About 120 Medical Marijuana Clinics in Arizona

CONTACT: Mike Meno, MPP director of communications: 202-905-2030, 443-927-6400 or [email protected]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After a tally of late provisional ballots, the Associated Press is reporting that Arizona voters have approved Proposition 203, a state ballot measure that will allow patients suffering from cancer, AIDS, and other life-threatening illnesses to use medical marijuana with a recommendation from their doctor. Arizona now joins the list of 14 other states, along with the District of Columbia, that have passed medical marijuana laws since 1996.

         “Voters in Arizona have sided with science and compassion while dealing yet another blow to our nation’s cruel and irrational prohibition on marijuana,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, which provided significant funding and support to the Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy Project, the local group that ran the Proposition 203 campaign. “Arizona’s law now reflects the mainstream public opinion that seriously ill people should not be treated like criminals if marijuana can provide them relief, and that doctors should be able to recommend marijuana to patients if they believe it can help alleviate their suffering.” 

         Seventy percent of Americans favor making marijuana legally available for doctors to recommend in order to reduce pain and suffering, according to a recent Gallup poll.

         “Sadly, patients in 35 states still have no legal protection if marijuana is the medicine that works best for them,” Kampia said. “We will continue working in the years ahead to ensure that others are awarded the respect and compassionate care that seriously ill patients in Arizona will now enjoy, thanks to this law.”    

         Proposition 203 allows for the establishment of about 120 tightly run, state-regulated clinics that will dispense marijuana to qualified patients in Arizona. Patients who live more than 25 miles from a clinic will be allowed to grow their own medicine. The other jurisdictions with medical marijuana laws are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Oregon, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state, and the District of Columbia.

         With more than 124,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. For more information, please visit www.mpp.org.

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Gap Closes for Arizona Medical Marijuana Measure

Arizona's measure to legalize medical marijuana is still trailing but the gap is closing. The measure was about 3,100 votes below the 50 percent plus one needed for passage after more votes were counted on Thursday afternoon -- by Thursday night when more totals were posted, the measure was losing by less than 1,500 votes. Elections officials say about 14,000 early ballots and 45,000 provisional ballots are left to be processed and counted from the Nov. 2 election.
voting booth (wikimedia.org)
voting booth (wikimedia.org)

Election 2010: Races Still Undecided and Odds and Ends

It's not a done deal yet in the Arizona medical marijuana vote, the California attorney general vote, and a Washington state representative race of interest to drug reformers. Also, some election odds and ends.

New Campaign! 26 States by 2012!

Donate Header 26 by 2012 Adjusted

 

 

Dear friends,

To have a shot at removing the federal government's prohibition on medical marijuana, we need at least 26 states to legalize medical marijuana. This will give us a clear path to victory in Congress and/or the federal courts.

As of today, medical marijuana is legal in 14 states and the District of Columbia.

To get to 26 states, we need to run ballot initiatives in some tough states in November 2012 – Arkansas, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota. And to get on these five ballots in November 2012, we need to start the signature drives soon, with the first being in Arkansas.

Please help MPP succeed with a new experiment: I want to see if we can fund the entire signature drive in Arkansas through monthly credit card donations from you and others on this e-mail list. Please start donating $10 or more on your credit card today.

As soon as we get up to $10,000 in monthly donations, we'll start funding the signature drive in Arkansas. Public opinion polling shows that 58% of Arkansans would vote for a medical marijuana initiative there, so the key is to put such a question on the ballot for them to approve.

Assuming a typical validity rate of 60% for signatures collected, we'll need to collect 110,000 gross signatures in order to end up with the required 65,000 valid signatures. It costs about $1.50 to collect and verify each signature, so here's the cost of the campaign:

110,000 gross signature x $1.50

$165,000

legal fees, printing, travel

$15,000

TOTAL COST

$180,000

 

 

 

 

The signature drive will take about 18 months to complete, so as soon as you and other allies begin monthly credit card donations totaling $10,000, we'll start the signature drive, and then you can sit back and watch us win in Arkansas, and hopefully other states, too.

In a couple weeks, I'll update you on how much money we're receiving in new monthly donations for the Arkansas campaign.

Please help me show that this experiment can work — that fewer than 1,000 people across the entire country can join together to help the first state in the deep south to legalize medical marijuana. We need to do this if we want to get to 26 states.

Please donate $10 or more on your credit card today so that we can start the signature drive in Arkansas.Thank you.

Sincerely,

Rob's signature

Rob Kampia thumbnail (master)Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.


Help us meet our mission

Raised in ’10:$2,721,628
Goal in ’10: $3,400,000

MPP will be able to tackle all of the projects in our 2010 strategic plan if you help us meet this challenge.

To contact MPP, please click here or reply to this e-mail. Our mailing address is Marijuana Policy Project, 236 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20002. Any donations you make to MPP may be used for political purposes, such as supporting or opposing candidates for federal office.

 

Bay State Voters Stoked to Weed Out Most Marijuana Laws

Voters in more than a dozen state legislative districts backed dramatic expansions to legal access to marijuana in last Tuesday’s elections, and advocates plan to use the results to press lawmakers to loosen restrictions on the drug.
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