On the Scene: Patients Rights Rally January 27 2016

It‘s almost impossible to document all the different things Arizona NORML does. All by itself, it would probably take 10s of 1000s of words to explain the 1000s of words that come out of our office. Luckily, when it comes to dealing with groups of 1000s of words, there’s pictures.

For example, Jay Lawrence, former shock jock now LD23 Rep. (Scottsdale, etc.) invited a hailstorm of condemnation when he proposed HCR2019, an attack on the state’s medical marijuana industry that would’ve blocked naturopaths and homeopaths from certifying patients, reduced length of patient cards from one year to six months and harshly felonized providing cannabis to people under 18, criminalizing parents and health care workers who support cannabis-based therapies for children. Arizona’s one of the states lauded across the nation for our medical program. Parents flock here to provide support for their children that is criminalized in their home states. The phenomena‘s so widespread it’s called being a “medical refugee.” They’re heroes. So when Rep. Lawrence attempted to launch his bill, the pushback was loud and long. Hundreds of calls and emails poured into Lawrence’s office, who pulled the bill Friday Jan. 22, less than 10 days after filing it.

In response the patient community, members of the dispensary industry and grassroots activists united Wed. Jan. 27 for a shady press conference in the capitol complex “rose garden” (so-called for no perceivable reason). Arizona NORML was there and, now so were you, and it only took 250 words to get here:

(Click on pictures to enlarge)