Author Ray Stern

Wife, kids, pets, mountain climbing -- the usual.

More Arizonans than ever hold medical-marijuana cards, boosting state-legal cannabis sales — and the tax revenue from them — to a new record.

Arizona patients bought 29 tons of cannabis products in 2016, according to records published today by the state Department of Health Services.

Included in the total are about 27 tons of buds and another couple of tons of edibles and concentrates like wax, shatter, and hash oil.

That’s a 53 percent increase over last year’s 19 tons of cannabis products sold.

Debbie Moak, director of the Arizona Governor’s Office of Youth, Faith and Family, worked closely with the group that helped defeat Proposition 205 in November.

That much is not in dispute. But did Moak use the resources of her office — including her work time — improperly to campaign against the marijuana-legalization measure?

Moak denies it, but e-mails New Times obtained from the governor’s office under Arizona’s public-records law show that to some extent she did.

Gage Skidmore

 

Marijuana legalization has apparently failed in Arizona, with uncounted votes unlikely to turn the defeat into victory as they did with the state’s medical-marijuana measure in 2010.

As evidence mounts that the gulf between the “no” and “yes” votes on Prop 205 is too vast for the measure to catch up, cannabis supporters are left with one burning question: How could this happen in Arizona, when voters in California and as many as five other states approved the legalization of recreational or medical marijuana?

 

Medical-marijuana doctors and certification centers report seeing an increase in appointments over the two days following the negative election results of Proposition 205.

The measure to legalize marijuana in Arizona appears to have failed, though the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Arizona is waiting for all the votes to be counted before making an announcement. The Associated Press called the race for the “no” side late Tuesday night.