Lawmakers went to Helena to clean up the freewheeling medical marijuana industry, which most agreed had grown too big, too fast, with little oversight. Instead, the legislation they passed is so convoluted it’s unclear what, if anything, it fixes.
Some of the new rules took effect over the weekend. And the assumption by the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jeff Essmann, R-Billings, is that they would immediately repeal the Department of Public Health and Human Services’ authority to issue medical marijuana cards. But that department disagrees.
Apparently, the law is so vague that the agency believes it still has the responsibility to issue cards under the old, less restrictive rules, until June 20. And health officials say they have a 60-day backlog of applications to work through and will be adding people to the list of about 30,000 Montanans who already use medical marijuana (that’s more than 3 percent of the state population).
Before the Legislature convened, an interim committee came up with several major proposals to overhaul the Medical Marijuana Act, which was overwhelmingly approved by the state’s voters in 2004. Those included requiring background checks for growers and sellers of medical marijuana and making license holders provide quarterly financial reports and submit to audits. For users, it would cap the amount of medical marijuana they could purchase each month and two physician certifications would be required to a get a card.
Those proposed new rules made sense. But Republicans in the House didn’t think so. They ignored the interim committee’s recommendation and sent Gov. Brian Schweitzer a bill that repealed the law altogether. They knew the governor would veto it. And he did.
With time running out in the session, lawmakers then cobbled together a plan that essentially turns the medical marijuana law into a grow-your-own system that eliminates providers from making profits and limits them to three patients each.
Schweitzer compared the proposal to communism and quipped, “There is a guy who thought of that system first, his name is Karl Marx.” Yet he let the legislation, which he called “one of the worst-crafted bills in this Legislature,” become law without his signature. And now the inevitable lawsuit has been filed.
State District Judge James Reynolds has already ordered the state to not enforce rules in the legislation that ban medical marijuana providers from advertising their products. A separate motion has been filed to strike down the law altogether on constitutional grounds.
The brief reads, in part, “in a feeding frenzy that can appropriately be dubbed its moment of ‘reefer madness,’ the Montana Legislature spent considerable time in repeated attempts to undo the enactment of the people.”
Lawmakers here may have become jittery after federal agents raided dispensaries across the nation, including several in Montana. Those providers have sued the government, claiming the raids violated their rights under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.
I have argued previously – while acknowledging that the Medical Marijuana Act needed an overhaul – local municipalities and the state are disingenuous to attribute a crackdown to their fear of the federal government. Keep in mind that our politicians have proposed legislation that would selectively ignore other federal laws involving health care, guns and law enforcement authority.
These new medical marijuana rules are arguably the most restrictive of the 14 states that have legalized medical marijuana. Medical marijuana advocates are now gathering signatures with hopes of overturning the legislation and putting the issue on the 2012 ballot. Senate Bill 423 – for all intents and purposes – was aimed at killing the industry. But it’s unclear if lawmakers even got that right.