Effort in Arizona to Legalize Marijuana and All Drugs Advances

Applications attempting to get initiatives on the Arizona ballot to legalize drugs in Arizona were submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office. I-13-2018 seeks to legalize all drugs, including peyote, LSD, cocaine, heroin and marijuana. I-14-2018 seeks to legalize marijuana.

The language in I-13-2018 reads, in part, “This initiative is 100% complete legalization of all drugs. It forbids the government from taxing or regulating any drug. It gives complete, automatic pardons to anyone convicted of a drug crime, civilly punishes government employees who violate a person’s drug rights, forbids extraditing for drug crimes, forbids the government from discriminating against drug users and requires the courts to accept cases involving drugs,” according to Fox 10 Phoenix.

Regarding 1-14-2018, the filing says, ““This initiative is 100% complete legalization of marijuana, unlike the phony baloney Safer Arizona initiative. It forbids the government from taxing or regulating marijuana. It gives complete, automatic pardons to anyone convicted of a marijuana crime, civilly punishes government employees who violate a person marijuana rights, forbids extraditing for marijuana crimes, forbids the government from discriminating against marijuana users and requires the courts to accept cases involving marijuana.”

Safer Arizona filed the Safer Arizona Cannabis Legalization Act earlier this year to legalize adult-use marijuana in the state. The initiative needs to obtain 150,000 valid signatures by July 2018 to appear on the ballot in November 2018.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said, “Should the federal government undertake responsible enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act, state level efforts to affirmatively legalize – not simply decriminalization – drugs will be rendered moot. Similarly, a conscientious review of the growing body of scientific research on medicinal uses of marijuana supervised by the FDA may render unnecessary state level systems for creating availability of ‘medical’ marijuana.”