A.R.S. § 13-3407 — Dangerous Drugs

What the statute covers

The statute criminalizes possessing or using a dangerous drug, possessing it for sale, possessing equipment or chemicals to manufacture it, manufacturing, administering to another person, obtaining it by fraud, and transporting or offering it for sale. Simple possession is a class 4 felony; possession for sale, manufacturing, and transportation for sale are class 2 felonies. What separates “possession” from “possession for sale” is circumstantial — quantity, packaging, scales, cash, messages — and contesting that inference is often the whole case.

First offenses: probation, reduction, diversion

For personal possession, three doors can soften the felony. Proposition 200 (A.R.S. § 13-901.01) makes probation with treatment mandatory — prison is not available — for a first or second personal-possession conviction, with methamphetamine excepted. For a first offense involving a non-meth dangerous drug, the court can also designate the conviction a class 1 misdemeanor. And prosecutor-run diversion can resolve eligible cases with no conviction at all. Which doors are open depends on the drug, the history, and the county.

Threshold amounts and mandatory prison

Arizona sets a statutory threshold amount for each drug — for methamphetamine, nine grams. At or above threshold in a sale-class case, probation disappears and prison becomes mandatory on conviction, and meth sale charges carry their own enhanced ranges. Weight, purity, and how the State aggregates separate quantities are all litigable.

Defenses

Drug cases rise or fall on search and seizure: the stop, the search of the car or home, the warrant, consent. Suppression of the drugs usually ends the case. Beyond the Fourth Amendment, possession itself is contestable — proximity is not possession, and shared spaces raise real questions of who knowingly controlled what. See the drug possession defense page, and the narcotics counterpart at A.R.S. § 13-3408.