AZ Medical Marijuana Proposition 203 Passes
Update: Prop 203 has passed. All hail the AZ voters! Folks who think this will turn AZ into Cali should really read the Proposition. It was incredibly well written with thoughtful, strong limits to avoid many issues found in CA and CO.
...The final vote also confirmed that Arizona voters did approve a law allowing patients with a recommendation from their doctors to purchase up to 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana every two weeks from non-profit dispensaries. Supporters outnumbered foes by about 4,300 votes.
…The Arizona measure will allow patients with diseases including cancer, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C and any other “chronic or debilitating” disease that meets guidelines to buy 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana every two weeks or grow plants.
The patients must get a recommendation from their doctor and register with the Arizona Department of Health Services. The law allows for no more than 124 marijuana dispensaries in the state. After ballots are canvassed Nov. 29, the state has 120 days before the law goes into effect.
Backers of Proposition 203 have argued that thousands of patients faced “a terrible choice” of suffering with a serious or even terminal illness or going to the criminal market for pot. They collected more than 252,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot _ nearly 100,000 more than required….
…Arizona voters overwhelmingly approved a medical marijuana law in 1996 and 1998, but it never went into effect because of problems with its wording.
…Saturday’s final count was 841,346 in favor of the measure and 837,005 opposed….
AZ Politics: Prop 203 ahead with <10k votes to be counted…
Like Lenny said, it aint over til it’s over~
Awesome GWTW Kravitz mashup by LittleMissVain
The lamestreams all reported this as failing to pass a week ago. They like to report AZ is too red to let Medical Marijuana pass, they ignore we passed it twice already. Cali shenanigans almost killed it this time ’round- keep fingers crossed, only a few thousand votes to be counted~
Arizona appears on the verge of finally getting a law that actually will allow patients to obtain marijuana legally.Figures released late Friday show Proposition 203 ahead by 4,421 votes out of more than 1.6 million cast.
Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell, whose office has the last of the ballots to be counted, told Capitol Media Services she has only about 10,000 ballots yet to be tallied.
That includes about 2,000 provisional ballots, largely those that were cast by voters at the polls on election day by people who had previously requested and been mailed an early ballot. Purcell said her office needs to make sure they had not voted twice.
Purcell noted the trend in the provisional ballots has been running close to 2-to-1 in favor of the measure.
That leaves just 8,000 early ballots from voters who overinked their marks, resulting in a bleed-through to the other side of the paper.
Among early Maricopa voters, the measure is losing by a 48-to-52 percent margin. And County Elections Director Karen Osborne said the last of these early ballots being counted are running virtually the same as those already tallied.
If that pattern holds, there would be fewer than 4,200 additional votes against the measure and more than 3,800 in favor, making it virtually impossible to bridge that 4,421-vote edge, plus any others added to that from the remaining provisional ballots.
Among Maricopa County voters who went to the polls on election day as they had planned, the “no” votes exceeded those in favor. But all of those ballots already have been counted.
Proposition 203 actually won in only Pima, Coconino and Santa Cruz counties. But the big margin of victory in Pima — more than 43,000 votes out of nearly 306,000 cast — was enough to cancel out opposition elsewhere, especially with the measure losing overall in Maricopa County by fewer than 4,000 votes….
This is a classic example of where, with all respect, I think that Sen DeMint is wrongin his statement that we cannot be fiscally conservative and socially ‘liberal’. I consider myself moderate because I am both those things for the most part.
Libertarians that are fiscally conservative also fall into this group. People who have certain medical conditions should have access to a natural remedy for their condition, and no lobbying by Big Pharma (who are No 2 on my Teh Evil list behind certain Bankstas) should stop people from being free IMO.
Hang On Sloopy, we’re almost there~
Moderate in the Middle 