Arizona sued over medical marijuana licensing practices
The marijuana business has been booming in Arizona especially after the legalization of pot. While many Maricopa County dispensaries are expanding, and hiring more staff, in some rural parts of Arizona that is not the case.
and last updated 2021-02-25 22:29:16-05
The marijuana business has been booming in Arizona especially after the legalization of pot. While many Maricopa County dispensaries are expanding, and hiring more staff, in some rural parts of Arizona that is not the case.
ABC15 has learned that thousands of medical marijuana cardholders are still struggling to get access to the products, almost ten years after it was legalized. That is because dispensaries that once held licenses in these areas have closed up shop and moved to more populated communities. Several years later, the state has still not opened up the application process to allow prospective business owners to apply for licenses to establish new dispens
A lawsuit working its way through the Arizona court system is challenging Arizona Department of Health Services denial of four dispensary licenses in rural Arizona counties, as a Phoenix-based company attempts to fill empty spaces in the cannabis landscape and increase patient access where there currently is none.
The lawsuit pits four LLCs Joshua Tree, Cactus Wren, Saguaro and Desert Tortoise health centers against AZDHS, challenging the denial of applications for dispensary licenses in Apache, Greenlee, La Paz and Santa Cruz counties.
The initial complaint was filed in July 2020 and alleges that AZDHS denied the applications despite a ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court stating the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act requires that ADHS issue registration certificates, and necessarily open the application process, under two distinct circumstances: (1) if the allocation of dispensary certificates is below the one-in-ten ratio [of dispensaries to pharmacies] or (2) a county does not hav