Arizona Supreme Court rules medical marijuana extracts, infused products legal

The Arizona Supreme Court unanimously ruled that cannabis extracts – including concentrates, vaporizer cartridges and infused food and beverages – are legal and the state’s medical marijuana dispensaries can sell them.

In doing so, the court handed a win to the state’s booming medical marijuana industry.

Some Arizona retail shop owners and marijuana product manufacturers feared the state would ban the products, which would have resulted in significant financial losses.

Despite risks, though, many dispensaries continued to sell the products while they awaited the courts ruling.

The court also vacated the convictions and sentences of Rodney Jones, whose case was at the heart of the argument over extracted products.

Jones, a medical marijuana cardholder, argued he was wrongfully convicted of felony possession for having 0.05 of an ounce of hashish.

“(The Arizona Medical Marijuana Act – AMMA) defines marijuana as including ‘all parts of any plant of the genus cannabis whether growing or not,'” the court’s justices wrote in their ruling.

“Consistent with this language, we hold that AMMA’s definition of marijuana includes both its dried leaf/flower form and extracted resin, including hashish.”