Pubdate: Mon, 12 Jul 2010
Source: Billings Gazette, The (MT)
Copyright: 2010 The Billings Gazette
Contact: http://billingsgazette.com/app/contact/?contact=letter
Website: http://www.billingsgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/515
Author: Jennifer McKee
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

PROPOSALS TO FIX POT LAW IRK SOME USERS

HELENA - Limit the number of medical marijuana patients that a 
caregiver can sell pot to? Ban caregivers from selling pot to one another?

Make it illegal for anyone other than a licensed caregiver to 
dispense medical marijuana?

A panel of lawmakers in Helena brainstormed these and other ideas 
Monday as it continued to grapple with a sudden expansion in 
Montana's young medical marijuana industry.

Not all of those ideas were good, said some who grow and use medical marijuana.

"You guys are going to take away my profit. I'm trying to make a 
living," said Mare Boustead, a caregiver and patient from Bozeman.

Boustead said she has 24 patients as a caregiver and bristled at the 
notion that the law should force her to have no fewer than three or 
five - one of the ideas lawmakers discussed Monday.

She also questioned why the committee continually brought up the fact 
that Montana has more than 20,000 medical marijuana patients as of June.

"How many kids are on Ritalin that you guys don't seem to care about 
or think about?" she asked.

Lawmakers "act like it's the end of the world" that 20,000 Montanans 
use medical marijuana, Boustead said, but asked what about the 
Montanans who use opiate-based prescription drugs?

"I bet you 10 bucks it's more than 20,000," she said. She added: "If 
you believe in the free market, the free market will work itself out."

The bipartisan panel is a smaller offshoot of the Children, Families, 
Health and Human Services Interim Committee. The group has been 
studying the issue of medical marijuana for weeks and intends to 
bring some kind of bill to the 2011 Legislature to close the 
loopholes of Montana's 2004 citizen-passed medical marijuana law.

Last month, the panel had its first meeting and took particular aim 
at the "traveling clinics" sponsored by the Missoula-based Montana 
Caregivers Network. Such clinics could provide hundreds of people 
with medical marijuana cards in a single day. However, the network 
announced this week that it was shutting down the so-called "cannabis 
caravans."

Lawmakers on Monday took up other aspects of the business, all aimed 
at ridding the system of abuses. To that end, lawmakers agreed to try 
to change the law to make it illegal for anyone with a felony 
conviction or a misdemeanor drug conviction to become a licensed caregiver.

They also gave preliminary approval to making caregivers submit to 
background checks that would look at convictions in all 50 states.

At least one caregiver who sat in the audience of Monday's meeting 
said he thought that was a good idea.

But other ideas that dealt with how the industry actually works met 
with greater criticism.

Of particular concern is the ability of caregivers to sell marijuana 
to each other. Lawmakers have contended that the practice leaves the 
too much gray area for marijuana to leave the legal realm.

Several caregivers said banning such transfers would be a bad idea 
because marijuana growers are, in a way, farmers and sometimes crops fail.

The committee meets again next month. None of the ideas proposed 
Monday is set in stone. Any bill the committee produces would also 
have to pass the muster of the full 2011 Legislature, which probably 
will have a full slate of bills to consider dealing with medical marijuana.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom