Arizona marijuana legalization burns toward the ballot

As many as 56% of Americans support ending cannabis prohibition, which critics say has failed. (photo via DPA)

Arizonans are cruising to a vote on cannabis legalization for adults this election cycle. The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol announced Wednesday they were just 15,000 signatures away from their 230,000-raw name goal for placing Initiative 5 on the Nov. 8 ballot. The group needs approximately 150,000 valid signatures to qualify the initiative by July 7, 2016.

In a (successful) effort to stir up media attention for an Arizona legalization initiative, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol this week put up Mothers Day-themed billboards in Phoenix and Tucson.

The ads turn the typical parental cannabis conversation on its head. “Have you talked to your parents about marijuana?” they ask.

As sticky as the slogan might be, the blast is the latest example of a broader trend. And in this case it’s not the message, it’s the medium.

Want to have an awkward conversation with your parents this Mother’s Day? A new ad campaign suggests opening up about your pot use.

Backers of a marijuana legalization initiative in Arizona launched an ad campaign this week that hopes to open dialog about cannabis use on Mother’s Day, ABC reports.

The billboards were paid for by Arizona’s Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol (CRMLA), and can be seen throughout the cities of Phoenix and Tuscon. The ad depicts a mother and a daughter posing next to the tagline, “Have you talked to your parents about marijuana?”

Five properties in Scottsdale are authorized to sell medical marijuana, more than double from a year ago, according to city records. Four are within a 1-square-mile area in the Scottsdale Airpark near Scottsdale and Thunderbird roads.

A new chart from the Marijuana Business Daily show that America's four states with legal, recreational marijuana markets are going to have some company this fall - especially if the poll numbers in three key states hold up.

With medical marijuana now legal in 23 states — and recreational weed legal in four — the conversation about pot will only continue to buzz. Soon, weed as research, as medicine, and as business may no longer be a taboo topic.

But what parts of the country talk the most about marijuana? Denver may be the first to come to mind, since it was the first to legalize recreational use, but a new report from Aizman Law Firm finds this isn’t always the case. The law firm decided to see what U.S. cities mentioned weed on social media the most, so it analyzed geotagged Instagram posts hashtagged with the phrases #weed, #maryjane, #marijuana, or #420.

The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Arizona has hit a new milestone in its quest to get on November's ballot.

An Arizona citizens' initiative campaign to legalize marijuana announced today that it has reached 200,000 signatures — more than needed to make November's ballot.

But the campaign is shooting for far more than it needs — at least 225,000 signatures — in case some are invalidated.

Andy Bunske and Chris Ellis are hoping to ride the marijuana legalization wave and take their Scottsdale business to a national platform.

Ellis and Bunske are co-founders and principals with Scottsdale-based Beacon Information Designs Inc.

The company provides consulting and compliance services to government agencies, businesses and others delving into the world of medical marijuana and legalized cannabis.

“It’s very robust,” Ellis said of Beacon’s marijuana consulting business.

The Marijuana Business Factbook estimates the cannabis business in the U.S. could hit $44 billion by 2020.

That would surpass the GDP of Panama and Serbia.

Ellis said the hope is for the firm to become one of the top marijuana consulting firms in the U.S.

Medical-marijuana facilities may soon have fewer options of where to open in Phoenix, through zoning changes the city is considering in advance of a possible statewide vote to make recreational use of the drug legal.

Medical-marijuana facilities may soon have fewer options of where to open in Phoenix, through zoning changes the city is considering in advance of a possible statewide vote to make recreational use of the drug legal.

The city’s planning and development department is proposing stricter regulations for new dispensaries, cultivation sites and infusion facilities. Industry advocates say the changes would make it even more difficult to find locations where they could operate. 

Strange bedfellows: Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk, pro-cannabis activist David "Safer Dave" Wisniewski, and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery.

In a case of politics making strange bedfellows, Arizona's top pot prohibitionists and supporters of a grassroots, pro-cannabis effort agree on a legalization bill headed for November's ballot.

In fact, hardcore stoners who support the spoiler group Arizonans for Mindful Regulation would spit up their dab hits in disgust at the very notion that the planned ballot initiative backed by the national Marijuana Policy Project should even be called "legalization."