A Navajo County judge’s recent ruling about medical-marijuana extracts could lead to popular dispensary products like vape cartridges and edibles being taken off the shelves.
Don’t freak out: That’s a worst-case scenario.
But it’s possible if a higher court ultimately agrees with the judge and rules that “cannabis” is not covered by the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act.
Some cannabis advocates say patients should watch this case closely.
“This is a big deal,” said Phoenix cannabis attorney Tom Dean, who’s worked on several prominent cases involving the state’s medical-marijuana law.
The problem is that the law, which was approved narrowly by voters in 2010, includes a definition for marijuana and “any mixture or preparation thereof.” Yet Arizona’s criminal code on pot, written prior to 1960, defines both marijuana and a strange substance called “cannabis,” which comes from marijuana resin but apparently isn’t marijuana. It’s officially a “narcotic” under this old law, carrying a stiffer felony designation and penalties.
Earlier this month, authorities told a grand jury that a 26-year-old Prescott man with a valid medical-marijuana card was not legally allowed to possess a few grams of extracted resin, or “cannabis” — despite the fact that half or more of the products for sale at Arizona dispensaries contain extracted resin.
“After review of the statues the court finds that the the AMMA does not include cannabis,” Navajo County Superior Court Judge Dale Nielson wrote in his October ruling. “The court reads that AMMA language of ‘any mixture or preparation thereof’ as making reference to the dried flowers of the plant and as such, without further definition, or information that cannabis can be extracted from a ‘dried flower,’ the court cannot find that this would include cannabis.”