An administrative law judge told Arizona Department of Health Services Director Will Humble today that Arizonans suffering from post-traumatic stress should be able to legally use medical marijuana to treat their symptoms.

Arizona health officials are looking to root out physicians who are improperly recommending medical marijuana for patients who claim to suffer from chronic pain.

Arizona’s medical marijuana law says that as long as a doctor recommends it, anyone can possess and use marijuana, but the law, narrowly passed in 2010, doesn’t explicitly say the chemical-containing resin can be extracted from the marijuana. That could mean problems for the patients and dispensaries that are already buying and selling certain products under the belief that they were authorized.

The obesity rate for low-income Arizona preschoolers remained level from 2008 to 2011 after growing sharply in previous years, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.

An Arizona judge has ruled that medical marijuana dispensaries must employ a physician as a medical director to help oversee operations.

Arizona is not appealing a court ruling on medical marijuana and there could be licensed dispensaries established around the state as soon as this summer, Health Services Director Will Humble announced Tuesday.

Dozens of hopeful medical marijuana patients got their medical marijuana recommendations April 15 at a large medical marijuana expo in Glendale, but the recommendations signify what may become a struggle to allow only legitimately ill people into the medical marijuana program, and to discipline or strip the licenses from doctors who wantonly sign marijuana recommendations.

The Arizona Department of Health Services made the state’s medical marijuana rules official today by submitting them to the Secretary of State’s Office, albeit with a few slight alterations from the previous “final” version of the rules they released March 28.

A small detail in the state’s medical marijuana rules might allow unregulated hemp production. The perceived loophole, one hopeful hemp farmer says, was created by the Health Department’s lack of input from pot botany experts during the department’s rulemaking process.

The Arizona Department of Health Services has released the final version of the state’s medical marijuana regulations, after nearly five months of writing and rewriting drafts of the rules following the passage of Proposition 203 in November.