Bill aimed at legalizing personal marijuana use introduced into AZ house

PHOENIX – Arizona’s legislative session has yet to get underway, but one representative has already begun work on a bill to legalize personal use of marijuana.

H.B. 2007 would pave the way for personal marijuana use in Arizona and was introduced by state Rep. Mark Cardenas (D-19), who said he introduced the bill because the current system of criminalizing marijuana use simply is not working.

“We have a (sic) archaic system of enforcing laws that just says, ‘We’re going to get tough on crime’ and we see that it hasn’t reduce the number of people smoking marijuana,” Cardenas said.

The law would allow personal use of marijuana by anyone over 21 years of age, possession of up to an ounce of marijuana and even allow people to cultivate their own marijuana plants.

Cardenas said with the state facing a severe budget deficit of an estimated $1 billion by the end of this fiscal year, a system of taxation and regulation instead of criminalization could help alleviate some of the debt.

“We have to fund three things in this state, which is (sic) education, medication and incarceration; 84 percent of the state budget goes to that” he said. “So when we have a billion dollars that we have to figure out how to close that gap, this is one of the tools that I’m offering.”

Decriminalizing marijuana use could also help cut costs to Arizona’s courts, jails and prison systems, according to Cardenas.

“We spend just too much money trying to enforce a law, especially in Arizona, when we’re trying to look at ways to reduce our budget deficit, prison reform could be one of those things that could allow us to close that gap,” he said.

Cardenas said he hopes the bill will be heard and discussed by his fellow representatives as soon as possible.