By this time next year, dozens of medical marijuana dispensaries could be up and running throughout Phoenix if voters pass a proposition to let seriously ill Arizonans use the drug with a doctor’s recommendation.

In March, PHOENIX magazine detailed the proposition with an exclusive inside look at an existing, underground medical marijuana clinic in Tucson. In June, the Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy Project became the first initiative to qualify for the November 2 ballot after turning in nearly 100,000 more petition signatures than required.
 
The project’s campaign manager, Andrew Myers, says he is confident the initiative – Proposition 203 – will pass because people understand what is at stake. “People who are dying shouldn’t go to jail for following their doctors’ advice,” he says.

The initiative limits the use of marijuana to patients with specific “qualifying” conditions (such as cancer or AIDS), bars patients from smoking pot at dispensaries or in public places, requires marijuana dispensaries be non-profit, caps the number of dispensaries statewide at 120 and gives the state Department of Health Services inspection and regulatory authority.

Political consultant Max Fose, who launched the opposition campaign Stop the Pot, says the medical marijuana campaign is using sick people as a smokescreen to disguise a broader agenda.

“It is the first step in a larger strategy to legalize marijuana,” says Fose, who was the lone financial backer of his campaign at press time. “I don’t think legal marijuana is good for Arizona.”