The rules of the Arizona Department of Health Services require that every Arizona medical marijuana dispensary have a medical director. See “What is a Medical Director & Why Does Every Arizona Medical Marijuana Dispensary Need One?” If an operating dispensary were to suddenly lose its medical director, the dispensary would be in jeopardy of losing its Dispensary Registration Certificate, i.e., its license to grow and sell medical marijuana.
A dispensary could lose its medical director if the doctor were to:
- die
- become incapacitated or incompetent
- lose his or her license to practice medicine
- refuse to provide services even though it might be a breach of contract
- suffer health problems
- or experience any of an infinite number of events that result in no further services.
I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that no dispensary owner would want to risk losing the Dispensary Registration Certificate because of the loss of its medical director. Because the risk of the medical director could stop providing services at any time and cause the dispensary to lose its license and because the financial consequences so great, every dispensary should enter into a written contract with at least one other doctor to be an alternate medical director who automatically becomes the primary medical director if for any reason the primary medical director ceases to be the medical director.
