PHOENIX - Arizonans who act quickly can be among the first to qualify to buy, possess and use marijuana, which voters legalized for medical use in November.
Department of Health Services officials on Monday made the forms available on the agency's website that a doctor has to fill out to get a patient a medical-marijuana card. DHS Director Will Humble said that while applications won't be accepted until April 14, those who think they qualify can jump-start the process right now.
And if everything is in order - and the patients pay the $150 application fee by credit card - state law requires the medical-marijuana cards to be sent out within 10 days.
Legally speaking, there won't be any place for those with the cards to buy their medication because the first official dispensaries won't be licensed until September. However, the law allows those living at least 25 miles from a dispensary to grow their own. And with no dispensaries, everyone with a card qualifies, at least for the first year.
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But Humble found himself at a loss for explaining how these patients will get the seeds or cuttings to get started.
"I don't know!" he exclaimed. "We're not going to prescribe how you do that. And I really don't have any advice for folks on how to find seeds. Maybe there's ads in the back of a weekly magazine in town for that, too."
The first step, though, is a doctor's visit.
If the family physician is unwilling to write a certification for marijuana, Humble said the patient will need to shop around for a physician who will.
However, he said Arizona doctors need to do better than those in some other states, where a quick visit can get a doctor's signature on the forms.
Under state regulations, a doctor is supposed to review the patient's medical records for the last 12 months plus do a full assessment and physical related to the medical condition for which the patient seeks marijuana. Humble said that also means discussing alternate therapies with the patient and the pluses and minuses of medical marijuana, "really talking to you about what marijuana is, what it can do to your ability to drive a car, for example."
Once the doctor signs the form, the application process is completely electronic. Patients fill out an online form and electronically attach a copy of their driver's license proving Arizona residency, the physician's certification and a digital photograph, along with the $150 application fee to cover the cost of administering the program.
Humble's agency did agree to a 50 percent discount on the fee for anyone eligible for food stamps, meaning gross income of no more than 130 percent of the federal poverty level, $1,984 a month for a family of three.
The state will not regulate prices at dispensaries, but Humble said his department will do what it can to make sure there is "a robust network of dispensaries" and to "make sure that qualified patients know where those dispensaries are, so they can shop around for price and quality, and let the market determine what the ultimate prices are."
The law lists specific conditions for which a doctor can recommend marijuana, ranging from cancer and glaucoma to AIDS and Lou Gehrig's disease. There also is a broader catch-all for any chronic or debilitating medical condition or treatment that causes severe and chronic pain, seizures or wasting syndrome.
Humble said he can't guess how many Arizonans eventually will qualify for medical-marijuana cards. He said one key is whether physicians will provide the kind of time and attention needed to determine if someone is really qualified. If a small number of doctors decides to line its pockets "by seeing a patient every seven minutes" with little concern for the patient's actual medical condition, the doctors could easily sign 100,000 certifications in a year, he said.
The first patients who do get cards and get to grow their own medication won't be able to just pop some seeds in the ground in the backyard or even set up grow lights in a spare bedroom.
Humble said state law requires a "secure facility." For outside cultivation, that means a 10-foot high concrete wall with a metal gate. Inside the house, that means a locked room or closet accessible only to the person with the medical-marijuana card.
"… I really don't have any advice for folks on how to find seeds. Maybe there's ads in the back of a weekly magazine in town for that, too."
Will Humble , state health director
