In January an Arizona Democrat lawmaker introduced a new bill to make marijuana legal for recreational use for adults. If the bill submitted December 30 is voted through by legislation, voters in Arizona will be able to vote on the recreational use of marijuana by adults. Arizona is one of twenty-three states that allows the use of medical marijuana. If it is passed we will be one of five states that allows marijuana to be used recreationally (Schwartz 2015). There has been many debates about whether or not Arizona should legalize recreational marijuana. The bigger debate is between federal and state law and who has the power to legalize marijuana. The federal government regulates drugs through the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) (21 U.S.C. § 811), which does not recognize the difference between medical and recreational use of marijuana. These laws are generally applied only against persons who possess, cultivate, or distribute large quantities of marijuana. Under federal law, marijuana is treated like every other controlled substance, such as cocaine and heroin. The federal government places every controlled substance in a schedule, in principle according to its relative potential for abuse and medicinal value. Under the CSA, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug, which means that the federal government views marijuana as highly addictive and having no medical value. .
On December 16, 2014 President Barack Obama signed the federal spending bill, included in the bill was a measure stating that federal funds may not be used by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to prevent certain states from implementing medical marijuana laws. The inclusion of this provision follows an August 2013 U.S. Department of Justice announcement that, as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, DOJ would not use its limited resources to challenge state laws legalizing recreational marijuana, as long as the states implemented strong regulatory schemes to prevent crime (Russo 2014).
