Tucsonans can now get medical marijuana delivered to their doorstep.
About a dozen people cheered the City Council Tuesday after it unanimously approved sweeping changes to its medical marijuana rules.
Earlier this year, Council members Paul Cunningham and Richard Fimbres sought the changes as a way to help Tucson become more competitive with Arizona cities with less restrictive rules.
Local medical marijuana purveyors had complained that the city’s tight rules on growing marijuana led to local shortages and higher prices.
Cunningham agreed.
“I find it unacceptable that we have medical patients using drugs from Phoenix when they can be grown here,” Cunningham said during the meeting.
In addition to home delivery, the changes also include:
- Extending hours of operations for dispensaries from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Previous rules limited hours from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- Lifting the 3,000-square-foot limit on marijuana cultivation sites in industrial zones.
- Permitting dispensaries to make marijuana-infused products such as brownies or other edibles.
- Eliminating the 500-foot sensitive use setback requirement for cultivation sites in industrial zones to everything except schools.
Jean-Paul Genet, the owner of Tucson’s two cultivation sites, commended the council for making it easier to meet his clients’ needs.
“We in the industry are looking forward to being able to participate to the extent we want to in terms of participating fully in the community, and giving back to the community, which thus far we have not been able to do because of the limitation,” Genet told the council.
Cunningham said the broader rule changes reflect the country’s changing attitudes towards the drug.
“There’s been a paradigm shift in the whole national collective consciousness about marijuana, about its use, about its medicinal value,” Cunningham said.
