Waiting for the dispensaries to open is not an option. Once dispensaries open, "new cultivation" will not be permitted within a 25-mile radius.
I don't expect dispensaries to do anything at all for patients except take their money and give it to lawyers, but this is incorrect. If you are authorized to cultivate, it's a license until the next renewal, not just until a dispensary opens up.
Thank the Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy Project for that bit of monopoly power that they voted upon themselves. However, it is expected that if you get a card that permits you to grow *now*, it will remain valid for cultivation until such time it expires (1 year from the date it was granted).
By that point in time, either the state or the feds will probably have shut down any dispensaries; they will be easy pickings for several reasons. The state is full-throttle on keeping them from even opening. So, things may in fact look pretty bright for individual cultivators.
Nobody is evil enough to think like I do, apparently. But I think it's just as likely an outcome that the
growers will call the FBI and the DEA on the dispensaries (anonymous tips from a few thousand concerned citizens will not be ignored). No need for county attorneys to get involved.
But it's clear that apathy prevails. All 300 who signed the petition are pretty passionate about it I'm sure. The one guy who was going to try to save us ended up getting busted with more plants than are allowed anywhere, and I don't expect to be hearing from him again.
Like some of you, it was the DHS that got me into cultivation in the first place. I got a letter explaining that dispensaries would not be opening, and suggesting that I apply for cultivation. They even waived the $10 fee. I've often wondered if that could put us in a different class for legal defense purposes. But there so much misunderstanding about the nature of the 25-mile rule and what it would take to remove it. We would need a whole new ballot initiative, and there was no effort to do that in this election year, and it's too late to consider it now. It's probably just as well. This thought should scare you to death: A ballot initiative that could remove the 25-mile rule could also eliminate the AMMA.
I wonder who will be left to support the movement when all the really motivated people decide they have had enough of AZ and move to Colorado, Oregon, or California or whatever.
Who knows? Maybe the dispensary situation will be great. I just don't respond well to having a right given to me and then taken away. For me, it's not really about "growing marijuana." At the core, it's about being given a right, and then having that right taken away (so that it can be given to someone else.) I'll be honest; I don't think I will ever be able to accept it, and if I could afford to do it, I'd already have moved someplace else.