In a bizarre twist; A group of medical marijuana dispensary owners who were previously working WITH MPP to draft a marijuana legalization initiative, have now announced that they are filing a competing marijuana legalization initiative against MPP!
The new group is calling themselves Arizonans for Responsible Legalization (ARL), and the Chairperson is Gina Berman of the Giving Tree Wellness Centers.
In an email sent to the Arizona marijuana industry from Gina Berman, she states;
The industry has instead decided to run its own campaign that enacts responsible laws to tax and regulate cannabis for adult use with the proceeds benefiting Arizona’s public education system. Negotiations (with MPP) have failed to generate an initiative that the current Arizona cannabis industry can support.
A list of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Dispensaries that are associated with the Arizonans for Responsible Legalization group has been made available publicly.
Based on the document that was leaked, the medical marijuana dispensaries that are board members of the ARL are:
- Gina Berman – Giving Tree Wellness Center (Phoenix, Mesa)
- Jeff Schaffer – PARC (Phoenix)
- Kaylynn Arnold – Uncle Herbs Health Center (Payson)
- Gino Lucadamo – Phoenix Relief Center
- Doug Daly – Greenhouse of Flagstaff
- Mark Steinmetz – Nature’s AZ Medicines (Phoenix, Fountain Hills)
- Kurt Merschman – AZ Natural Selections (Peoria, Cave Creek)
- Steve White – Harvest of Tempe, Bhang Chocolates (Tempe, Statewide)
- Demitri Downing – Bloom, Medican Nations
- Edward Judice – Bloom (Phoenix, Tucson, Sedona, Oracle)
- Moe Asnani – The Downtown Dispensary (Tucson)
We received a copy of the ARL’s draft legalization initiative, but were later told by Gina Berman that it wasn’t an “official” copy that we had seen.
In the meantime, we’re all waiting to see if the ARL’s offering will address more of the marijuana community’s concerns than MPP’s version will.