Arizona
Arizona awards highly sought social equity marijuana licenses
AZ dispensary says if invoice decriminalizing marijuana is signed, it should assist their enterprise
The US Home handed laws, now it heads to the Senate the place it is anticipated to face steep opposition. If it does cross, what wouldn’t it imply for dispensaries in Arizona, since marijuana is already authorized right here? FOX 10’s Irene Snyder stories.
PHOENIX – Arizona’s public well being company has awarded greater than two dozen social fairness dispensary licenses underneath the state’s voter-approved legislation legalizing leisure marijuana.
Don Herrington, Arizona Division of Well being Companies interim director, introduced in a weblog put up on Might 10 that every one 26 licenses have been issued in a drawing that was live-streamed.
Greater than 1,500 purposes had been submitted.
The licenses are doubtlessly price tens of millions of {dollars}. They have been established underneath a 2020 poll measure’s provision that ensured there can be licenses for “folks from communities disproportionately impacted by the enforcement of earlier marijuana legal guidelines.”
The method was fraught with authorized challenges.
The Larger Phoenix City League and an organization filed a lawsuit difficult the principles the state used to provide out the licenses. They argued the principles lack provisions like a prohibition towards license transfers and a requirement that licensees’ expenditures and income stay of their communities.
A Maricopa County Superior Courtroom choose rejected the lawsuit in February, saying the principles fulfill the broad mandates set by the legislation.
Herrington applauded Arizona’s program as a mannequin for different states. He mentioned the authorized challenges finally didn’t delay the task of the licenses.
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