A cannabis dispensary is coming to Sierra Vista, officials say. While details of the new pot business are still being discussed, Sierra Vista Senior Planner Jeff Pregler said last week a nationally known company called Trulieve is planning to open a dispensary in the city, reports Lyda Longa for the Herald/Review. Trulieve has 17 dispensaries in Arizona and several others around the United States, the company’s website shows. Read more online at myheraldreview.com. Do you think this will be good for the community? Why or why not?

I was one of two votes (Mayor was the other) NO on the City Council when this came to a vote. There is little if any benefit to the city either in service, or tax benefit. Any benefits will be offset by issues caused by the dispensary. Prop 207 was a disaster for our state. The cartels will not be undersold.

I know that it would benefit the city if nothing else people will be coming in to our town and spending money instead of going to Tucson or Bisbee. Sounds like it will be a reputable company that will pay taxes and we need more business in Sierra Vista.

It's always bad, even dangerous, when politicians, or others, use law to impose their moral or religious beliefs. Or their aesthetic beliefs.
In recent weeks I have met some more people for whom marijuana is medicinal.
Even our schizophrenic (actually downright insane) federal government has, in a very soft voice, admitted to the benefits of marijuana: It has given marijuana to victims of glaucoma, and to epileptics in a study of how or if marijuana would affect their seizures.
And apparently the feds liked what they learned: Feds started giving Marinol to Parkinson's patients.
Sufferers from PTSD have been given marijuana with positive results.
A local lady has started using marijuana for her mental or emotional problem that keeps her from driving safely. After using it, she is able to concentrate, to focus, and drive safely, and that's according to a friend, not to her herself. (Yes, it does seem counter intuitive.)
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Please, everyone, remember what a disastrous failure that "Noble Experiment," Prohibition, turned out to be. The only good from Prohibition was Las Vegas. (And, yes, that is my opinion. I don't gamble, either, but love the excitement, the entertainment, and even the food choices of that Sin City.)
It's not my right nor yours to impose a belief system: I don't gamble, drink alcohol, or ingest non-prescription drugs (and only one prescription drug), and don't go to church on the wrong day. But I do not have the right to impose my prudish blue-nose beliefs on others.

Gregory L. Johnson -- you said "the cartels will not be undersold."
That's a very interesting statement, and I believe you are wrong. Here's why:
Cartels make lots and lots of profit. And they have lots and lots of expenses, including paying their "soldiers" -- their guards and gunmen -- as well as their dealers, and the politicians and bureaucrats they bribe.
Generally, the cartels sell their products at prices high enough to include a profit on top of all those expenses.
But consider how those prices would decrease if the Insane War on Some Drugs were repealed. If a user, yes, even an addict, could go to his neighborhood chain drugstore and purchase his drug, he would, of course, be paying less.
Those stores, with their licensed pharmacists, would be selling a safer and purer product, and, with all the (in my scenario, then-legal) competition, prices would naturally decrease.
We wouldn't see gun battles among salesmen from Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, fighting for preferred corners, as we do now.
And perhaps this benefit also: When drugs become legal, their "forbidden fruit" allure disappears.
So many users are lured into that use by street dealers who need to expand their customer base -- generally kids, but certainly not always -- so those potential buyers might be given a free sample, then urged to start selling to their friends.
That is well known. And is the basis for many a TV or movie plot.
Just as Prohibition in the 1920s created the widespread and pervasive organized crime, the Insane War on Some Drugs has created those cartels you mentioned.
If we are to have government, its sole, its only, function is to protect the rights of the people, NOT, as Marj Simpson said so wisely, to use the law to nag.

Gregory L. Johnson These figures reported by Arizona seem to refute your claim that the city will not receive tax benefits. https://azdor.gov/reports-statistics-and-legal-research/marijuana-tax-collection. But you apparently also expect an increase in crime around the location of the dispensary that will overcome the tax benefit?

Though probably no one is gonna see this, I would like to add one more merely-common-sense observation, please: Marijuana _will_ be for sale. It always has been.
So why not have a _legal_ dispensary?
After all, alcohol is generally considered a far worse drug -- to ingest -- and it's for sale nearly everywhere.
Really the question to ask is, WHEN will politicians and bureaucrats grow up and quit trying to run individual lives?
It's both wrong and impossible.

Cannabis should be a controlled substance and only be available by prescription. Sorry, I do not see a benefit for our society by it's legalization.