Arizona medical marijuana

Cannabis and Marijuana Aren't The Same? Arizona Judge Rules Against Cannabis!

When you make a living thanks to the cannabis industry, it’s important to remember that most people have little knowledge of the cannabis. Some people get to make decisions about cannabis with zero knowledge of the plant, like Arizona county Judge Dale Nielson.

He recently ruled that cannabis is not covered under the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act (AMMA) and could be subject to penalty under Arizona state law, Phoenix New Times reports.

Cannabis is not covered under Arizona’s medical marijuana law.

No it isn’t a typo.

Under Arizona law, cannabis and marijuana are technically different. The AMMA was voted into law in 2010. In the written language of the act, it only specifies medical marijuana as flower. This opens a legal grey area for products like edibles, tinctures, and dab-able solvents, High Times reports.

Arizona medical marijuana
loud resin is a cannabis derived solvent

Flashback to 1960 when Arizona wrote its criminal code for the cannabis plant. Due to severe lack of knowledge the law says cannabis and marijuana are different substances. Marijuana is marijuana, but cannabis is defined as marijuana resin or any substance made from marijuana resin, per the Phoenix New Times. Cannabis education has come a long way in 57 years, but that still gives no leeway to the stupidity and complete scientific inaccuracy of  this law.

How does a law written 57 years ago upend pure scientific fact that cannabis derived products are inherently still cannabis? It’s as true now as it was 57 years ago when this law was written. How can this law not be interpreted as anything but unequivocally wrong? It doesn’t even take a scientist or a judge to find this out, a simple Google search will do.  

Cannabis sativa is the correct biological name for the cannabis and marijuana plant. Marijuana is term that became associated with cannabis when the “Reefer Madness” fever hit the united states around 1930. Henry Anslinger, then head of the U.S. Narcotics Commission used the word “marijuana” when describing illegal Mexican immigrants who got high off cannabis and raped and pillaged in America. Using America’s fear of immigration as a catalyst for cannabis prohibition. 

Anslinger directed anti-cannabis campaigns that painted the plant as society’s scourge and the word marijuana became associated with smoking cannabis and committing crime.

The point in bringing that up is this.

If the knowledge existed that cannabis and marijuana were the same thing in 1937, it existed in 1960.

Nielson’s ruling of cannabis is illegal and marijuana isn’t, is sort of  like making ice illegal because people who drink water have stabbed people.

The danger of Nielson’s ruling is that products could be taken off medical dispensary shelves or result in full store shutdowns, per the Phoenix New Times. It could also set a legal precedent in the state that allows legal medical patients to be charged with narcotics possession of cannabis derived products.

The good news for Arizona Medical Marijuana is this ruling came from a county judge and Arizona’s appeal and Supreme Court have a good history for ruling in favor of medical marijuana laws and patients.

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