Heres the best DR. IMOQuote:
Originally Posted by leadmagnet
Doctor Edgar Suter - Medical Marijuana Card in Arizona
Tell him I sent ya
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Heres the best DR. IMOQuote:
Originally Posted by leadmagnet
Doctor Edgar Suter - Medical Marijuana Card in Arizona
Tell him I sent ya
More news regarding the issue posted on azcentral.
Some quotes from the article:
And a quick update, Will Humble posted an article on his personal blog today (Jan 7), I encourage you to voice your opinions in the comments section. Hopefully some of our comments get approved :rolleyes:Quote:
More than 1,000 people have commented on the proposed medical-marijuana rules so far, responding most heavily to a handful of areas that include the definition of doctor-patient relationships and medical directors and limitations on where dispensaries get marijuana.
Department officials identified the top 10 suggestions as of Wednesday, including:
- Amend requirements for establishing a physician-patient relationship.
- Lower the fees, mainly for patients with limited income.
- Reconsider the requirement for a medical director.
The department wants a medical director to be on-call or on-site at every dispensary to make sure patients or their caregivers document changes in their symptoms, track marijuana usage, and ensure dispensaries provide educational materials. Some people wanted to expand the position to include other medical professionals, such as pharmacists and family nurse practitioners, ADHS officials said.
Others wanted to eliminate the requirement entirely, saying it will only increase costs.
- Establish a preliminary approval process for dispensary applications.
- Amend or delete the 70-30 rule, which requires dispensaries to grow at least 70 percent their marijuana and prohibits them from acquiring from or selling to other dispensaries more than 30 percent.
Others wanted to eliminate the 25-mile limit for patients to grow their own marijuana. But the state health department can't remove the requirement because it is outlined in Proposition 203, Salow said.
AZ Dept. of Health Services Director's Blog
Should be on the first page, it's titled Medical Marijuana Public Comments.
We must be relentless in voicing our opinions or we will be ignored.
Draft
Arizona Association of Dispensaries
4133 North 19th Avenue
Phoenix AZ 85015
7 January 2011
Mr. Will Humble
Director
Arizona Department of Health Services
150 North 18th Avenue
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
Re: Draft Regulations, Arizona Medical Marijuana Act
Dear Mr. Humble,
Our Association voices strenuous objection to the seriously defective content of the draft regulations. In aggregate, the draft regulations inform Arizona's suffering, dying, and good citizens that they are chattel. If the State says "Suffer!" we must suffer. If the State says "Wait and die! We must wait and die.
Indisputably too, the proposed dispensary regulations benefit only the elite super-wealthy, only those who can gamble millions of dollars to build fortresses that may never be licensed, fortresses that indulge police state spy-cam fantasies, but are unreasonable and unnecessary to the task. Such blatant favoritism in your proposed regulations is unacceptable.
The current draft regulations are defective beyond repair. We demand that the department rescind the draft regulations immediately and begin the process anew. In a transparent public process, promulgate draft regulations that are moral, compassionate, consistent with both the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act and the 1998 Arizona Voter Protection Act, and to the advantage of Arizona's suffering, dying, and good citizens.
Repugnant assumptions in the draft regulations
The unstated but evident fundamental assumptions of the regulations are immoral, lawless, cruel, elitist, and demagogic, utterly incompatible with moral imperatives of a decent free nation. These repugnant assumptions are:
1) the lives of Arizona's citizens belong to the State; the State, not the patient, will decide if, when, and what care patients will receive;
2) the department of Health Services is, as its spokesperson has indicated, above the law and may disregard the 1998 Arizona Voter Protection Act to usurp authority; and
3) the department may patronize the wealthy and elite to their advantage and to the disadvantage of the suffering, dying, and good citizens at large.
In your introduction of the draft regulations you even opined that you drafted the regulations for the "good" of the opponents of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, a bizarre concept akin to "Segregation is no longer the law, but the department is obliged to draft rules to satisfy segregationists."
Reminders
Patients, not the State, own their own lives, so have the right to choose if, who, when, and what kind of medical care they will seek.
Marijuana is completely safe in itself, cannot be lethal, and so should be treated as a safe, effective, and legal product as the findings of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act require, certainly not treated with more stringency than is currently required for the dispensing of drugs, prescription or otherwise, from Arizona's pharmacies and physician offices, The safety, efficacy, and legality of medical marijuana warrant the spread, not the suppression, of its use.
For these reasons and in view of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, medical marijuana services must be readily available to the qualifying patients and dispensary licensing must not be available only to an elite and wealthy group.
Partial listing of defects
ARS 36-2803.4 of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act requires that the Arizona Department of Health Services rulemaking be "without imposing an undue burden on nonprofit medical marijuana dispensaries...." In no way do the MPP/AZDHS draft regulations respect that requirement. Quite the contrary, the regulations impose unacceptable burdens not only on dispensaries, but on the suffering, dying, and good citizens of Arizona.
ARS 28.1 Section 2 "Findings" of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act requires the department to take notice of the numerous studies demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of medical marijuana. Arizona's pharmacies and physician offices dispense addictive, dangerous, and toxic drugs that, unlike marijuana, are potentially deadly, yet Arizona's pharmacies and physician offices are not required to have 12 foot walls, constant on-site transmission of video surveillance, residency requirements for principals, or any of the other cruel, arbitrary, and unreasonable regulations proposed by the department.
R 9-17-101.10 is an undue and unreasonable burden. 6 to 8 foot high chain link fencing, open above, constitutes reasonable security for outdoor cultivation.
R 9-17-101.15 is unreasonable and usurps authority denied to the department. It violates the 1998 Arizona Voter Protection Act. The department does not have the authority to deny the involvement of naturopathic and homeopathic physicians as defined by ARS 36-2806.12.
R 9-17-101.16, R 9-17-101.17, R9-17-202.F.5(e)i-ii , R9-17-202.F.5(h), R9-17-202.G.13(e)I , R9-17-202.G.13(e)iii , R9-17-204.A.4(e)i-ii, R9-17-204.A.4(h), R9-17-204.B , R9-17-204.B.4(f)I, and R9-17-204.B.4(f)Iii are cruel, arbitrary, unreasonable, and usurp authority denied to the department. Those sections violate the 1998 Arizona Voter Protection Act. ARS 36-2801. 18(b) defines an assessment, singular, as sufficient. The Arizona Medical Marijuana Act does not give the department authority and the 1998 Arizona Voter Protection Act denies the department authority to require multiple assessments, require "ongoing" care, or redefine the patient-physician in any way, much less to promulgate a relationship among patient, physician, and specialist that is found nowhere in the practice of medicine. Nowhere in medicine is a specialist required to assume primary responsibility for a patient's care. Nowhere else in the practice of medicine does Arizona require a one-year relationship or multiple visits for the prescription or recommendation of any therapy, including therapies with potentially deadly outcomes. Marijuana is not lethal, but the department usurps authority to treat it with cruel and unreasonable stringency far beyond the stringency imposed upon drugs that are deadly. Plainly, it is dangerous and arbitrary for the department to suggest that a cannabis specialist assume primary care of cancer, HIV/AIDS, ALS, multiple sclerosis, Hepatitis C, and other potentially terminal qualifying conditions when the cannabis specialist may not have the requisite training or experience to do so. The department's regulations are a cruel, unreasonable, and arbitrary usurpation of authority and denial of patients' rights of choice, including their rights to choose other medical providers, other sources of care or information, or even to choose not to seek (or cannot afford to seek) other medical care at all (whether prior or subsequent to application).
R9-17-102.3, R9-17-102.4, R9-17-102.7, R9-17-102.8, R9-17-104.5 , R9-17-105.4, R9-17-203.A.3, R9-17-203.B.8, R9-17-203.C.5, R9-17-304.A.11 usurp authority denied to the department. ARS 36-2803.5 only gives authority to the department for application and renewal fees, not for changes of location or amending or replacing cards.
R9-17-103, R9-17-202.F.1(h), R9-17-202.G.1(i), and R9-17-204.B.1(m) are cruel, arbitrary, and unreasonable. Though many qualifying patients, qualifying patients' parents, and their caregivers suffer financial and medical hardship, the sections make little or no provision for patients, parents, and caregivers without internet skills or internet access.
R9-17-106.A(4) is cruel, arbitrary, and unreasonable. The regulation does not allow for addition of medical conditions that cause suffering, but do not impair the ability of suffering patients to accomplish their activities of daily living. For example, conditions such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Anxiety, Depression, and other conditions may cause considerable suffering, yet still allow patients to accomplish their activities of daily life.
R9-17-106.C is cruel, arbitrary, and unreasonable. The regulation only allows suffering patients of Arizona to submit requests for the addition of medical conditions to the list of qualifying medical conditions during two months of every year.
R9-17-202.B is cruel, arbitrary, and unreasonable. Qualifying patients may need more than one caregiver to ensure an uninterrupted supply of medicine.
R9-17-202.F.5(e)i-ii and R9-17-202.F.5(h) are cruel, arbitrary, unreasonable, and usurp patients' rights to choose other providers or sources of information.
R9-17-202.F.6(k)ii, R9-17-204.A.5(k)ii , R9-17-204.C.1(j)ii , R9-17-302.B.3(c)ii, R9-17-308.7(b), R9-17-308.7(b), and R9-17-309.5(b), are arbitrary and unreasonable. If a caregiver already has a valid caregiver or dispensary agent registry card, no additional fingerprints need to be submitted.
R9-17-205.C.2 and R9-17-320.A.3 are arbitrary and unreasonable. A registry card should not be revoked for trivial or unknowing errors. Revocation of a card should not be allowed unless the applicant knowingly provided substantive misinformation.
R9-17-302.A, R9-17-302.B.1(f)ii, R9-17-302.B.1(g), R9-17-302.B.3(b) , R9-17-302.B.3(d)i-ix, R9-17-302.B.4(c), R9-17-302.B.4(d), R9-17-302.B.15(a), R9-17-302.B.15(b), R9-17-302.B.15(d), R9-17-306.B, R9-17-307.A.1(e), R9-17-307.A.3, R9-17-307.C, R9-17-308.5, R9-17-319.A.2.(a), R9-17-319.B are arbitrary, unreasonable and usurp authority denied to the department. These sections violate the 1998 Arizona Voter Protection Act. The department does not have the authority to establish residency requirements, control the occupation of the principal officers or board members, require surety bonds, require a medical director, require security measures that are an undue burden (security measures for non-toxic marijuana that exceed security measures required for toxic potentially lethal medications stored at and dispensed from Arizona pharmacies and physician offices), require educational materials beyond what the law requires, require an on-site pharmacist, require constant, intrusive, or warrantless surveillance, or regulate the portion of medicine cultivated, legally acquired by a dispensary, or transferred to another dispensary or caregivers.
R9-17-310 is arbitrary, unreasonable and usurps authority denied to the department. These sections violate the 1998 Arizona Voter Protection Act. The department has no authority to require a medical director, much less to define or restrict a physician's professional practice. Arizona's pharmacies dispense drugs that are very toxic, yet are not required to have medical directors on-site or on-call.
R9-17-313.B.3 is arbitrary, unreasonable and usurps authority denied to the department. This section violates the 1998 Arizona Voter Protection Act. The department has no authority to place an undue burden on recordkeeping for cultivation or to require the use of soil, rather than hydroponics or aeroponics, in cultivation of medicine.
R9-17-313.B.6 is arbitrary, unreasonable and usurps authority denied to the department. This section violates the 1998 Arizona Voter Protection Act. The department has no authority to place an undue burden on recordkeeping by requiring the recording of weight of each cookie, beverage, or other bite or swallow of infused food.
R9-17-314.B.2 is arbitrary, unreasonable and usurps authority denied to the department. This section violates the 1998 Arizona Voter Protection Act. Especially in the absence of peer-reviewed evidence, the department has no authority to require a statement that a product may represent a health risk.
R9-17-315 is arbitrary, unreasonable and usurps authority denied to the department. This section violates the 1998 Arizona Voter Protection Act. The department has no authority to place an unreasonable or undue burden by requiring security practices to monitor a safe product, medical marijuana, that is not required for toxic, even lethal, products.
R9-17-317.A.2 is arbitrary, unreasonable and usurps authority denied to the department. This section violates the 1998 Arizona Voter Protection Act. The department has no authority to require the daily removal of non-toxic refuse.
Summary
The department has a duty to facilitate-not subvert-the law. Consistent with the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, the department must acknowledge that patients have rights to choose their care and their providers. The department has a duty to ensure that compassionate and talented providers who do not have millions of dollars to gamble are awarded licenses. The department has a duty to promulgate compassionate and reasonable regulations.
The current draft regulations are defective beyond repair. Rulemaking must begin anew, open, a matter of transparent public record, and reflect the passage of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act-not opposition to that law.
To do otherwise demands immediate injunctive relief.
Sincerely,
the Arizona Association of Dispensaries
Nice, thanks stinkydank :)
I think the shits about to hit the fan leaves :(
so, with a written recommendation from a Dr. you can grow now legally? How does that work? Don't we have to wait for the rules to be set?Quote:
Originally Posted by leadmagnet
Will's DIRECTOR"S LOG TODAY MORE SMOKE BLOWN
.So far, weâ??ve received well over 1,300 comments on the Informal Draft Rules that we posted December 17. Our first comment period ends today. Weâ??ll be reviewing the comments and revising our initial draft over the next couple of weeks. Weâ??ll be releasing new draft rules for public comment on Monday, January 31, kicking off our next comment period (which will go through February 18). After that, weâ??ll craft the final Rules and publish the finished package on March 28.
The following issues are generating the most comments:
â?¢The definition/requirements for patient-physician relationship;
â?¢Adding additional medical conditions including mental illness, PTSD, fibromyalgia, depression, etc.;
â?¢The fee structure (especially for patients with limited income);
â?¢The 25 mile limit for patient/caregiver cultivation (which is actually in the Initiative, not the rules);
â?¢The requirement that dispensaries cultivate 70% of their own product;
â?¢The processes for approving dispensary registration certificate;
â?¢The requirement that dispensaries have a medical director;
â?¢The qualifications for medical directors (e.g. allow other medical professionals including a pharmacist, naturopathic physician, homeopathic physician, family nurse practitioner, physician assistant, or registered nurse to be the medical director);
â?¢The 2 year residency requirement for dispensary applicants; and
â?¢The requirement that cultivation facilities be licensed in association with a dispensary (which is actually in the Initiative).
Overall, the comments so far have been constructive and many have been positive and support much of the overall language in informal draft rules. All the comments on the informal draft rule are part of the public record and will be available for review on our hub 203 website (with personal identifiers removed) by next Wednesday.
Here it is, the reason for the 25-mile rule "to give a market to the dispensaries in the community so they'd be viable" Listen for yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheBig
MPPâ??s Andrew Myers Discusses Medical Marijuana in Arizona | The NORML Stash Blog
The rule and the statement made by definition is extortion. It is illegal to give an entire industry to a few private business with rules insuring all sales belong to them. Monopoly and extortion = Lawsuits.
Damn it 1300 people thats not much.... I gave mine..
the next step is the public meetings make sure to go!
Bring your friends and familys get groups Let our hearts be heard It's our law
State Health Gov/ Big Business wants to take our freedom away and inflict undue pain and suffering on us if we don't stop them.... we have the laws to back us too this time , And the will try to twist it any way they can ..
we are patients suffering from enough lets make sure we change this now!!!! before its in stone... :beatdeadhorse:
It is important to voice opinions at the public meetings, but if the corruption is true as stated in this thread, it is my opinion they will promise us many changes and at last minute and final ruling make little or no changes with some lame excuse why. The only way I see this playing out and getting real change is class-action lawsuits. Patients, Caregivers and small business interests need to ban together and get some good lawyers on this.Quote:
Originally Posted by stickydankAZ