Arizona's medical-marijuana patients now can patronize newly opened dispensaries in Reno and Las Vegas and possess up to 2.5 ounces anywhere in Nevada.

Arizona, like some of the other 23 states with medical-marijuana laws, allows people with valid medical cards from other states to legally possess marijuana in Arizona, but they can't legally buy it at Arizona dispensaries.

Nevada apparently is the only state that allows its dispensaries to sell to patients from other states. And now its dispensaries have begun to open, greatly expanding where Arizona's 80,000 patients can legally buy cannabis.

After 17 months, Dr. Suzanne Sisley is about to get the marijuana she needs to start a federally approved clinical study into whether marijuana helps veterans with PTSD.

She proposed this research five years ago, and has been herding bureaucratic turtles ever since. She’ll do the study in Arizona even though none of the state’s universities wanted to work with her on the fully funded study into one of the hottest topics around.

There is a list of reasons why vets are still waiting for answers.

One is the marijuana monopoly the feds built with your tax money.

Previous marijuana tax-revenue estimates were far too low, states a new report by the nonpartisan Grand Canyon Institute.

Arizona would raise about $72 million in revenue annually beginning in 2019 if voters make recreational marijuana legal in Arizona with an anticipated ballot initiative in 2016, says the report, published on the group's website.

Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and Washington, D.C., have legalized marijuana for adults 21 and older, and Arizona voters probably will get the chance to decide the question for themselves next year.

Here are our Top 10 reasons why marijuana legalization will pass here next November:The people of the 48th state are a proud, independent-thinking bunch who prefer the federal government to butt out (except when we need money). It's a purple state with about 35 percent of voters registered as independent. Put the question before them, and Arizona voters will say "yes" to legal marijuana for a multitude of reasons.

The oversize check presented to the state on Wednesday by backers of a plan to legalize marijuana in Arizona.

Ray Stern

Backers of a marijuana-legalization plan in Arizona are outraged over an unsigned editorial in the Arizona Republic published August 21 that used an inaccurate tax-revenue figure to bolster its claim that campaign officials were lying.

New Times also noticed the error on Friday morning and left the Republic's editorial page editor, Phil Boas, a message about it. The Republic later issued a correction.  

Backers of a proposed 2016 ballot initiative to regulate and tax marijuana like alcohol estimate the measure would raise more than $40 million annually for education in Arizona. The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol highlighted the potential revenue Wednesday by presenting the state with a jumbo-sized check during a “back-to-school” news conference in front of the state capitol.

After waiting in line for hours at a booth during a medical marijuana convention in San Francisco, Jeff Harrington needed only a two-minute consultation and a written recommendation to become a medical marijuana patient in California. He now can legally purchase and possess marijuana from any one of thousands of marijuana businesses in the state.

Across the country in Connecticut, an established physician-patient relationship is required before patients are deemed qualified for medical marijuana, and only licensed pharmacists can own and operate dispensaries.

Legalizing and taxing marijuana could raise an additional $40 million a year for education, according to estimates by the campaign to legalize the drug in Arizona.

The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which is gathering signatures to qualify for the 2016 ballot, would establish a network of licensed cannabis shops where sales of the drug would be taxed.

J.P. Holyoak, campaign chairman, said at a news conference at the state Capitol, “We have a choice: We can either tax and regulate marijuana for the benefit of education and public health care, or we can keep it illegal for the benefit of illegal drug cartels.”

With legalized recreational marijuana riding a winning streak since 2012, California, Massachusetts and Arizona are among top contenders to OK the substance – and more states could follow.

Ohio officials approved a bid last week to get recreational and medical marijuana legalization on the 3 November ballot. Thus far, Ohio is the only state where voters will consider pot legalization in the 2015 election. But that’s not because many states aren’t already eyeing their own marijuana campaigns.

APACHE COUNTY, AZ (KPHO/KTVK) -

"I feel like I have been raped and given a death sentence," says 54-year-old medical marijuana patient Gregg Levendoski.

Levendoski -- who is HIV positive, has hepatitis C and multiple forms of cancer -- said he was victimized last week when a task force of some 60 law officers, including SWAT teams, raided his remote and isolated property in Apache County at about 4 a.m. It was a multi-agency operation meant to find illegally grown marijuana.