The battle over access to medical marijuana in Arizona is set to intensify as Republican party members are preparing bills to restrict its use.
The proposals that are being considered seek to reduce Arizona's use of medical marijuana in a variety of ways. First, the plan is to change the duration for which a referral for medical marijuana from a doctor is legally valid. The second is to change the types of doctors that can issue medical marijuana referrals. A third strategy is to prevent certain categories of recipients from receiving the medical marijuana entirely, according to The Cannabist.
The first is being done by reducing the validity period of a medical referral to six months from the one year that it currently is. This will make Arizona patients using medical marijuana go to doctors more often (to seek referrals).
The second is being implemented by restricting the kinds of therapeutic practitioners that can issue referrals for medical marijuana. Currently, all kinds of therapeutic practitioners are allowed to issue such referrals. This even includes practitioners of alternative therapeutic systems like homeopathy and naturopathy. The Republican proposal is to restrict the authority to issue such referrals to only qualified medical doctors and osteopathy practitioners. Should this proposal be implemented, it will fundamentally transform the current system. This is because nearly 87 percent of the current referrals for medical marijuana are issued by practitioners of naturopathy, homeopathy or other systems. Disqualifying these categories of therapeutic practitioners would radically transform the medical marijuana system in Arizona today, according to Tucson Weekly.
The third strategy is to restrict people such as pregnant women from becoming recipients of medical marijuana referrals.
Certain lawmakers are already reported to be planning to introduce bills to make changes to Arizona's Medical Marijuana Act to implement these proposals. However, they are expected to face, among other things, constitutional challenges as well in getting these proposals through and enacted as law, according to Tech Times.
