Arizona Prosecutor's Ignorance Interferes With Treatments For Five-Year-Old Patient

[caption id="attachment_7097" align="alignright" width="219"] Jennifer, Zander, and Jacob Welton[/caption]

Jacob and Jennifer Welton have filed a suit against the state of Arizona to allow their five-year-old son to be allowed to take marijuana extracts for his seizures disorder. Arizona has already passed a medical marijuana law, which permits qualifying patients to use any preparation of marijuana in their treatment. However, local providers have ceased carrying his medicine after warnings from the local prosecutor.

Maricopa County prosecutor and named defendant in the suit, Bill Montgomery, believes that the law only permits marijuana, not extracts of marijuana. He derives his argument from a complete misunderstanding of the Arizona law and an ignorance of the science behind medical marijuana.

In the past, Zander has consumed dried and ground marijuana mixed with applesauce for treatment. The extract is both more appetizing and more efficient, due to its high concentration and very low levels of THC compared to the other beneficial cannabinoids.

Bill Montgomery has responded to the Welton’s suit by directing them to the state legislature, which would have initiated a long and unnecessary process according to Dan Pachoda, the ACLU attorney representing the Weltons:

The normal thing is not going to the Legislature when some prosecutor is improperly, and, in our view, illegally interpreting a law that clearly decriminalized not only marijuana but things made from marijuana.

Bill Montgomery’s actions contravene the law and common sense. He is preventing a child, who is already taking medical marijuana, from taking a better, less psychotropic form of medicine. He is misinterpreting the laws of his own state and misunderstands the concept of marijuana as medicine. He is waging a political battle against parents who are fighting for the health of their child.

If you want to tell Bill Montgomery what you think about his position on this issue, you can reach him at 602-506-3411 or email him at maricopacountyattorney@mcao.maricopa.gov.