Facing an onslaught of new regulation sure to be passed by the 2011 Legislature, Montana’s medical marijuana growers and caregivers are attempting to put a new face on their industry. Business groups, local governments and the industry itself recognize the “Wild West” atmosphere of medical marijuana in Montana is about to draw to a close. And that has these disparate interests bracing for a long 90 days beginning in January fighting for their desired outcome on medical marijuana rules.
The Montana Chamber of Commerce and National Federation of Independent Business are busy drafting legislation they say will protect small business owners against discrimination lawsuits from marijuana users and clarify where drug tests can be administered. The medical marijuana industry, meanwhile, is focused on legislation laying out how many plants and patients are permitted, rules they say could have a make-or-break effect on their business.
But while established business organizations are familiar with Helena’s corridors of power, most medical marijuana growers and caregivers are new to navigating the Legislature, and they know they need to get it right.
This was in evidence at a recent meeting of the Montana Medical Grower’s Association’s northwest chapter, in a conference room of Kalispell’s Red Lion Inn, where 22 growers and caregivers gathered to discuss strategy for the upcoming session, along with how to sway legislative candidates on their issues. Led by Ed Docter, a co-owner of Whitefish’s Tamarack Dispensary, the monthly meetings are also a kind of pep rally aimed at motivating those in attendance to testify and organize in advance of the Legislature.
“We have to play hardball, this is our livelihood; this is a billion-dollar industry,” Docter said. “Let’s be realistic and let’s tell these people what our solutions are.”
“We’ve got four months to really pull it together,” he added, “to really pull a good plan together.”
 |
|
Ed Docter, director of the Montana Medical Grower’s Association Northwest Chapter, leads a MMGA meeting at the Red Lion Hotel in Kalispell. |
Topics of discussion at the meeting included a house near the Capitol building the MMGA is renting for the session, providing a place to stay for those who live far from Helena wishing to testify at early-morning hearings. Docter suggested the group gather enough signatures to request a specialty license plate for medical marijuana growers and described a professional-looking pamphlet he was designing that “looks like a Pfizer brochure.”
Docter, 37, spent much of his summer in Helena attending hearings by the Children, Families, Health and Human Services interim committee as it worked up the main draft legislation revising the rules regulating medical marijuana in Montana. It’s a bill he believes is modeled too much after Colorado’s regulations.
“It’s almost word-for-word the Colorado law,” Docter said. “We’re in Montana; we’re much more rural.”
Montana is too sparsely populated for some of the proposed limits on patients per caregiver in the bill, according to Docter, and limits on the amount of marijuana allowed could leave some patients who use marijuana in tinctures or edible form without enough.
He repeatedly urged the assembled growers and caregivers to contact legislators and candidates to tout the positive impact they believe medical marijuana has had on local economies. A detailed list of candidates’ positions, he explained, was available on the Montana NORML website.
“At least, let them know what’s wrong with their way of thinking,” he told the group. “Our economy wouldn’t be anywhere where it is right now without marijuana.”
Docter urged those at the meeting to emphasize how much they had spent at local hardware stores buying material to launch their dispensaries or grow operations, and lamented what he saw as the position of more established business organizations, like the NFIB, that medical marijuana is hurting job growth in Montana.
But Riley Johnson, Montana state director for the NFIB, said his organization is mainly interested in a separate medical marijuana bill, currently in draft form, aimed at protecting employers from being sued if they fire a worker who also legally uses marijuana.
“We’re not going to position ourselves to say it’s right or wrong,” Johnson said. “What we would like to see done is to broaden the current law to make sure small employers are not dragged into discrimination lawsuits.”
“Am I going to go back and try and eliminate the initiative that was passed? No,” Johnson added. “All we want to do is tighten it up for small businesses so they know exactly what they can do and what they can’t do.”
Jon Bennion, government relations director for the Montana Chamber of Commerce, said medical marijuana has become the top issue for businesses heading into the 2011 session.
“Nine months ago this was a non-issue, and then it kind of exploded on the scene,” Bennion said. “All of a sudden, people with medical marijuana cards who are supposed to have debilitating conditions are in the work force, which the business community was not prepared for.”
This second bill, supported by business groups, would also expand the types of jobs where drug testing is permitted and ensure health insurance or workers compensation plans don’t require paying for medical marijuana.
A third bill in the works would clarify that Montana’s indoor smoking ban also applies to marijuana. A handful of other bills preliminarily drafted for the session, are also likely to come forward. A quick scan of the Legislature’s website reveals bill titles like, “Repeal Legality of Medical Marijuana,” by Sen. Jim Shockley, R-Victor, and “Require Reporting of Complaints on Physician Practices Related to Medical Marijuana,” by Rep. Diane Sands, D-Missoula.
For his part, Docter said the medical marijuana community is just as eager as business organizations and local governments to eliminate the “gray areas” pervading the growing, selling and preparation of legalized pot in Montana. And he warned those at the September meeting against becoming discouraged by the harsh words many lawmakers currently have toward marijuana – that if they work through the legislative process, it could result in a system that works for everyone.
“In any industry that’s young, you see all of this,” Docter said. “It’s going to be awesome. Trust me. Maybe.”