phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES JAN 6TH– JAN 12TH, 2022 State Licensed Dispensaries & Doctor Certifications | CANNABIS | Card from p 37 health department, 26 percent of cardhold- ers in Arizona are between the ages of 18 and 30. Twenty-two percent are in their 30s, 16 percent in their 40s, and so on. The number of cardholders goes down with age. At least until you hit age 60. Then it starts going back up. Ellenwood will turn 60 in May. “For us older people, you’re always go- ing to be looked down upon or judged any time you do anything out of the ordinary,” he said. “We were told for so many decades that this plant was the worst thing possible, that it’s in line with heroin. We’re growing up, or at least I hope so.” Medical cardholders in Arizona may consume two and a half ounces of mari- juana every two weeks. That’s more than enough to make a difference, advocates of the drug say. An ounce of cannabis flower typically makes about 60 joints, but it could be enough for 100, depending on potency. “This is becoming recognized as a seri- ous treatment,” Ellenwood said. Medical marijuana users pay a 5.6 per- cent sales tax to the state, plus another per- cent or so for county and city tax. For recreational use, there is a transac- tion privilege tax rate and an excise tax of 16 percent on retail sales. In 2021, the state collected $53.6 million from Ellenwood and other medical card- holders. From recreational users, it col- lected a whopping $121.4 million, according to the Arizona Department of Revenue. That’s more than $175 million in mari- juana taxes in 2021 alone. To date, the state has collected $513.5 million, according to the revenue depart- ment. Ellenwood doesn’t like the disparate tax differential between medical and recre- ational users. “I think that everyone should have full access to everything at the medical tax level because it’s as much or more of a medicine as, say, vitamin C,” he said. “For medical: almost no tax, if any. That would be fair to everyone.” Arizona dispensaries sold 140,000 pounds of marijuana and edibles to medi- cal cardholders in 2021, according to the health department. Ellenwood, who’s lived here since 2004, thinks Arizona is headed in the right direction. “I find it standard for most people in the state to be well-informed,” he said. “De- spite having been a red state before, there is a lot of open-mindednesses that frankly, Jacob Tyler Dunn when I came to Arizona, I was surprised to see.” Ellenwood wants Arizonans to “look beyond the rhetoric” when considering cannabis for the treatment of myriad ail- ments. Like many in the state, he’s sick of the stigmas that surround marijuana use — which are most prevalent in his own age demographic, data shows. “I think it’s one of the safest medicines out there,” Ellenwood said. “It changed Barbara’s life and it saved mine.” Customers lined up at the Territory dispensary in Mesa. 39
