Indopedia All Things Marijuana
Lead photo via Wikimedia Commons
The price of going legal in the Copper State is too high. At least that’s the argument of attorney Sean Berberian, who was back in court this week claiming that Arizona’s medical marijuana program is illegally charging registered patients an excessive fee for access to the state-approved medicine.
Since Arizona legalized medical marijuana in 2010, the price of a permit allowing patients to purchase legal weed from a dispensary has been an annual fee of $150, with those payments directly funding the state’s regulation of medical marijuana businesses. According to Arizona’s Capitol Media Services, that $150 mark was set at the turn of the decade by officials who predicted that only 25,000 residents would qualify for the all-natural medication. Now, with 143,000 patients currently participating in the program and paying annual dues, Berberian is arguing that the state is charging too much for cannabis access, with no official reason to horde the excess funds.
“What the Department of Health Services has done is set a fee structure and refused to reexamine or revisit that fee structure when it’s quite obvious that the fees they…
