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All is not lost: State never delivered financial incentive, but probation program found some success
The Legislature tried to give probation departments a financial incentive in 2008 to keep revocations and prison populations down.
However, lawmakers never came up with the money for the incentives. And this past session, lawmakers repealed the incentives program known as the Safe Communities Act (SCA). Even in the absence of the financial part, the program was considered a success by s[...]
In some rural areas, medical marijuana challenges views of community
As a volunteer police officer in this northwestern Arizona city, Harley Pettit saw young people get in trouble for everything from drugs and alcohol to vandalism. In a small community with not a lot to do, he said, the last thing young people need is another way to get into trouble.
He’s worried that’s exactly what medical marijuana will give them.
High-tech health care hotspot: The men behind Phoenix supercomputer say it will bring a new era of medicine
As Phoenix awaits the arrival of the world’s fastest supercomputer dedicated to health information, the time gap in translating new discoveries in medicine into new treatments continues to grow.
Reagan’s tobacco bill: A case of persistence and compromise
One bill signed into law this session is a textbook example of persistence, compromise, and how legislation sometimes ends up not too far from what it intended in the first place.
Feds OK Arizona’s process to freeze Medicaid unit
Arizona has received word from federal officials allowing the state to start implementation of the first phase of Gov. Jan. Brewer's plan to reduce Medicaid enrollment to help balance the state budget.
Arizona freeze on Medicaid awaits word from feds
Arizona officials hope for word Friday on whether they can start implementation of Gov. Jan. Brewer's plan to reduce Medicaid enrollment to help balance the state budget.
Arizona waits for word on partial Medicaid freeze
Arizona officials await federal clearance to take the first concrete step to reduce the state's Medicaid program — an enrollment freeze that starting Sunday would prevent new signups by people hammered by large health care expenses.
Mentally ill worry after Giffords shooting
For some Tucsonans touched by the tragedy of Jan. 8, sorrow was tinged with a sense of dread.
As recommendations roll in, state health officials begin tricky task of identifying impropriety in medical marijuana system
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.
Health Department tweaks final marijuana rules to outlaw hemp cultivation
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.
Doc says transplant cut probably doomed Arizona man
A transplant surgeon says a Phoenix leukemia patient's death probably could have been avoided if the state hadn't suspended Medicaid coverage for some transplants for six months.
Unforeseen Consequences: State pot rules may have spawned hemp industry
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.
