FLORENCE – A Casa Grande dairy company is getting into the medical marijuana business.

The Casa Grande Dispatch reports the Pinal County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to permit Sidewinder Dairy to grow medical pot in an enclosed 9,650-square-foot facility.

Planning and zoning officials recommended the indoor grow rather than the initially proposed outdoor operation, which garnered opposition from people concerned about access for children and criminals.

The permit is subject to review in a year. Marijuana grown at the site is slated to go to a dispensary in Mesa.

WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli Jr., issued a statement Wednesday advising the Supreme Court not to hear a lawsuit Nebraska and Oklahoma filed against Colorado’s marijuana legalization law last December.

Get the answers to common questions about marijuana in Arizona. If you get a medical-marijuana card, can you be fired? Can you get a DUI? Can you have it on a college campus?

Marijuana growing in the home of two medical marijuana patients in Medford, Ore.(Photo: AP)

There are many myths about use and possession of marijuana and medical marijuana in Arizona, especially since the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act passed in 2010. Here's what you need to know about what is and isn't allowed, and the legal consequences.

Can I be fired for using or possessing medical marijuana legally?

A patient can be fired if he or she is in possession or under the influence of marijuana at the workplace.

Arizona is the only state where medical-marijuana patients can face felony charges if they use or possess it on a college campus

An Arizona State University student is asking an appeals court to overturn the law that makes it illegal for him to have physician-recommended medical marijuana in his dorm room.

Andre Maestas, 20, an ASU junior and medical-marijuana cardholder, was arrested in 2014 and charged with a felony for having 0.6 grams of weed in his room on campus, roughly the equivalent of one joint.

He is the first to challenge a 2012 statute banning medical marijuana on state university campuses, which the Legislature passed two years after Arizona voters approved a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana.

Arizona is on many lists as one of the states that is likely to legalize marijuana in 2016. I have personally put Arizona on all of my lists, in addition to California, Nevada, Michigan, Maine, and Massachusetts. It sounds like Vermont and Rhode Island have a good chance of legalizing between now and then via legislative action as well. However, a recent poll shows the Arizona effort losing be a very slim margin right now. Per Biz Journals:

A new Arizona State University Morrison-Cronkite Poll shows 49 percent of state voters support marijuana legalization while 51 percent oppose.

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - The marijuana business is booming in states that have legalized marijuana for recreational and medical use.

Arizona voters are expected to decide whether to legalize recreations pot next year and beginning December 10th, Dunlap-Stone University, which is based in the valley, will offer online courses on cannabis -- helping those looking to get into pot-related businesses and learn more about the drug, how it's grown, manufactured and sold.

The legalization of marijuana is not only taking the cannabis industry out of the shadows; it’s also moving it outdoors and into the sunshine.

As a growing number of states and municipalities legalize cannabis on some level, more professional marijuana growers are able to access agricultural technologies that previously might have brought some unwelcome attention from law enforcement.

One of the largest examples of the changes in the cannabis business sector is the current buzz about greenhouse usage. Many cannabis companies are seeing greenhouses as an energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly and financially sound alternatives to indoor warehouse grows.

States throughout the USA are quickly adapting to pro-marijuana laws because science is revealing its many medical benefits, and economies and societies improve where it’s legalized. For these reasons, Americans continue to vote to end marijuana prohibition, which has led to presidential candidates debating marijuana legalization as a major topic right alongside global warming, terrorism and taxes.

Over forty states have passed some type of medical marijuana law, while four states and the District of Columbia have adult-use recreational marijuana laws.

Arizona medical marijuana cardholders are at risk of DUI for having any amount of marijuana in their system.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that Arizona medical marijuana cardholders have no immunity from prosecution under a state DUI law which prohibits motorists from having any amount of marijuana or its chemical compound that causes impairment in their bodies.

As states attempt to clamp down on pot smoking motorists, they keep finding out that their arbitrary edicts about pot are based in la la land.
 

Phoenix, AZ – On Sunday, we reported that Colorado juries are increasingly acquitting people of driving under the influence of cannabis, and prosecutors are furious. The trend is important in that it represents jury nullification of an arbitrary, unscientific state law establishing a “legal limit” for blood-THC.