Pat Hune, Broker, 1st Southwest Realty, with help from Various Sources, January 2020
We all know by now the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act (AMMA) has legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes in Arizona. However the Federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) categorizes marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance and the manufacture, distribution, or possession of marijuana is a federal criminal offense. It is illegal under federal law. Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has sent out a Memorandum that specifically states that the use of marijuana for medical purposes violates federal law and that federal and state nondiscrimination laws do not require landlords to accommodate requests by current or prospective residents with disabilities to use medical marijuana. So what does this mean for a landlord? If a tenant smokes marijuana on your rental property and is arrested for a drug crime the Federal Government could seize your property. Yikes!
Simply having the card does not authorize the tenant to smoke in someone else’s home (rental) and the tenant can be evicted if the landlord has first hand knowledge or an eyewitness. If this is in a condo complex or apartment community, and it is disturbing to other residents, the tenant can be served with a 10-day notice of non-compliance.
What should a landlord do to address medical marijuana use? Under the current laws a landlord can refuse to rent to tenants with medical marijuana cards. The landlord should not ask the tenant to disclose if they have a medical marijuana card on the application. The landlord should disclose during the application process that medical marijuana use is not allowed on the property. This allows the tenant to look for a different rental without spending money on an application fee and potentially ending up homeless if they have already given notice to their prior landlord. If the tenant moves forward with the application then the tenant should sign a Crime Free Addendum and an addendum that says “any use of marijuana (medical or otherwise) by the tenant or their guests will result in an immediate termination. This includes both public and private use.”
A secondary problem, just like with cigarette smoke, is dealing with odor removal. We have added to our lease terms that the tenant is responsible for odor removal up to $500. Hopefully there are not a lot of other repairs needed so the deposit will cover the odor removal.
The bottomline is until the federal laws regarding medicinal marijuana change the landlord should prohibit use on their rental properties or risk losing it to the federal government.