When Arizona voters narrowly made medical marijuana legal (sort of) with last year's passage of Proposition 203, we here at Weekly World Central pondered how to approach the topic of medicinal pot.
We made our decision with a little help from our friends at Westword, the alternative newsweekly in Denver.
For about a year and a half now, Westword has run reviews of pot dispensaries and other medical-marijuana-related businesses. The reviewer, William Breathes (not his real name), has been featured on all sorts of national news outlets and, yes, even The Daily Show.
Of course, Westword's pot coverage got all sorts of attention because it was, in journalism terms, a "holy shit" story. ("Holy shit! That paper's paying a dude to review marijuana!") However, far too much of that coverage missed or downplayed an important part of the story: Breathes and Westword are treating the medical-marijuana beat seriously—as they should.
With Westword's blessing, we're going to follow in their footsteps: Later this year, when Arizona's medical-marijuana system is approaching functionality, we will start featuring a regular column of medical-marijuana reviews.
These reviews will discuss topics of importance to people who honestly seek marijuana for medicinal purposes: How much are the products at the dispensaries? How effective are they? How thorough are these "medical marijuana certification" clinics? Are they clean? Are they legitimately screening people to make sure they qualify for a certification card? How accessible is the handicap parking? And so on.
Of course, we need to find the right person (or people) to write this column for us—and we're starting the search this week. Read all of the pertinent details here.
