Journalists’ Roundtable: Prison health care programs and more

Feb. 20

Health care operations in Arizona prisons

Jim Small: “This is unprecedented in Arizona. It’s only ever happened once in California. Essentially this is the culmination of a lawsuit that was filed in 2012, that is 14 years of litigating and arguing in court about the way that the Arizona Department of Corrections provides health care to its inmates.”

Jamar Young: “It’s huge. It’s been happening for a long time. There are a lot of deaths, a lot of illnesses that were undiagnosed or diagnosed late. I mean, this is very significant, and it’s something that was a problem that never seemed to be rectified.”

Jeremy Duda: “The state hadn’t really made a semblance of trying to comply with this injunction that was put in place a few years ago, and the imposition of the extraordinary, I think, was the way she (Judge Roseline Silver) put it, was the only way to resolve this litigation.”

Bill targets excessive pot smoke

Young: “I’m not shocked by anything. I guess you have to define where it reaches that threshold that it becomes a public nuisance. And then there’s also been the discussions regarding the constitutionality of it, when to call law enforcement, whether there could be racial profiling. Some people have brought that up.”

Duda: “The other issue is state constitutionality in terms of, can you actually pass something like this that potentially alters a voter-approved law? Because legalized marijuana and medicinal marijuana, this went to the voters.”

Small: “You don’t want things to fail, and you want to make sure that there’s a campaign. There’s someone in place to actually promote the ballot measure that you want to see passed. I don’t know who would be promoting this one.”