Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Honor Indicates Interesting Ways AMMA Experiment Is Turning Out

Arizoneout is honored to be named one of the top 100 blogs about lawyers and the law as part of the ABA Journal’s 5th Annual Blawg 100.  The Journal of the American Bar Association, the nation’s largest voluntary membership organization for lawyers, judges, and law students, received more than 1,300 nominations for the honor this year.

My thanks to Tony Kessler of M. Lee Smith Publishers, who penned this wonderful word play for the Arizoneout nominating blurb:  “Who would have ever thought that a blawg about medical marijuana in the workplace would take off and reach such dizzying heights? The blawg is indeed creating quite a buzz among Arizona employers and employment law attorneys. Each new installment creates a stash of valuable information that readers can put in their pipe and smoke.”

The Blawg 100 has 12 categories.  Arizoneout is in the category for labor and employment law blogs.  Blawg 100 is also a contest, with the top blogs in each category to be determined by online voting.  Arizoneout would appreciate your vote.  The shield at the right will take you to the voting site, or you can click here.  Registration is required to vote, but it is relatively painless.  Voting ends December 30.

Arizoneout attributes its Blawg 100 honors to the heightened interest in medical marijuana nationally, and especially here in Arizona, as we implement the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act (AMMA) that Arizona voters adopted in November 2010.  It is one of the very few compassionate use laws around the country that includes employment protections for Qualified Patients.

Another sign that medical cannabis is a hot topic nationally:  the medical marijuana industry is now featured on reality TV!  On Thursday, December 1, 2011, the Discovery Channel aired the debut episode of “Weed Wars.”  The show features a California marijuana dispensary, Harborside Health Center in Oakland, CA.

Several versions of the opening episode are available on You Tube.   I’m not sure about the copyright legalities, so I won’t link to those.  The Discovery Channel has lengthy excerpts on its website.

Harborside Executive Director Steve Angelo says the dispensary, which opened in 2006, is the largest on the planet, with more than 94,000 legal patients, and gross sales of $21 million in 2010.  Another interesting tidbit from the opening episode:  all of the employees of Harborside are themselves legal cannabis patients in California.  Now that’s an interesting twist on medical marijuana in the workplace!

Arizoneout will be watching future episodes of “Weed Wars” and in future posts or Tweets will share the highlights that Arizona employers should not miss.

1 comment:

George E. Bourguignon, Jr. Attorney at Law said...

Congrats on making the top 100 blogs in the ABA Journal annual survey!