By Jim Walsh
Staff Writer
Arizona’s newly approved Proposition 207 is enabling as many as three million residents to buy a small amount marijuana legally for the first time without a state-issued medical card and get high in their home.
The new law promises millions of dollars for teacher training, substance abuse treatment, suicide prevention and even enforcement of impaired driving laws.
It also promises a host of challenges.
Police are preparing for more impaired drivers. The courts could see a deluge of requests for expungements of prior marijuana possession convictions.
Prop 207 provides for neither defense.
Prop 207 won a much larger victory – 1,946,440-1,302,458, or 60-40 percent, according to unofficial results – than President-elect Joe Biden did in the state.
Although it legalizes possession of up to an ounce of marijuana, its full impact probably won’t hit home until April – when medical marijuana dispensaries will be able to sell weed to millions of new customers who won’t have to qualify for a medical marijuana card.
Of course, it’s not as if those without a card couldn’t find marijuana in Arizona, a border state known for illegal drug trafficking.
However, voter approval of the medical marijuana proposition in 2010 gave birth to a thriving industry.
Through October, 287,715 residents with cards bought 2,786,197 ounces of marijuana from…
