Pubdate: Wed, 16 Apr 2014
Source: Billings Gazette, The (MT)
Copyright: 2014 The Billings Gazette
Contact: http://billingsgazette.com/app/contact/?contact=letter
Website: http://www.billingsgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/515
Author: Mike Dennison, Gazette State Bureau

ABUSE OF MONTANA MEDICAL POT RULES CURBED WITHOUT LAW, ATTORNEY ARGUES

HELENA - Montana's medical-marijuana law was back in court Tuesday, as
an attorney for the drug's users and the industry argued that
restrictive parts of the 2011 rewrite of marijuana rules should be
permanently voided.

James Goetz, a Bozeman lawyer, said those provisions have been blocked
by a court for almost three years, and yet the law is still curbing
pre-2011 abuses that the Legislature wanted to address.

"We have kind of an experiment, we have actual evidence that certain
features of the (law) were not necessary to accomplish its goals," he
told District Judge James Reynolds of Helena. "The state's own
witnesses have conceded that things are not only better, but much better."

The number of medical-marijuana users has fallen from pre-law highs of
30,000 to just 8,300 as of last month, he noted.

Lawyers for the state, however, said those parts of the law - a ban on
commercial sales of marijuana, a limit of three patients per marijuana
provider and others - should be upheld and reinstated.

The state needs only to show a "rational basis" for the law's new
restrictions, and the rationale is that marijuana is still illegal
under federal law, said J. Stuart Segrest, an assistant attorney
general for the state.

Segrest said the state is allowing cultivation of a product that the
federal government considers illegal, and the 2011 Legislature wanted
to protect those who need medical marijuana from prosecution, but
still allow them a way to obtain it by growing their own or getting it
from someone else for free.

"You've got to give the Legislature the benefit of the doubt," he
said. "If it's rational for them to speculate that to limit commercial
sales, addresses the abuses that they saw ... then that law passes a
rational-basis (test)."

Reynolds, who often played the devil's advocate with both sides during
the two-and-a-half-hour hearing, said he would rule later on the
issue, and determine whether a trial needs to be held sometime this
summer or fall to settle the case.

Tuesday's hearing was the latest installment in the long-running legal
battle over a 2011 law that imposed new restrictions on medical
marijuana in Montana, in the wake of an explosion of medical-marijuana
usage the previous two years.

Montana voters approved medical marijuana with a 2004 ballot measure
and the number of patients grew slowly and steadily until mid-2009.

In the next two years, patient numbers ballooned from about 2,000 to
more than 30,000, as marijuana purveyors traveled the state, offering
quick approval of medical-marijuana cards at makeshift clinics.

The 2011 Legislature passed a law imposing multiple restrictions,
banning the sale for profit of marijuana and essentially telling
patients that they had to grow their own marijuana.

The marijuana industry sued to invalidate the law, arguing that it
imposed unconstitutional restrictions on a product that the state had
declared as legal.

Reynolds temporarily blocked many of the law's most restrictive
provisions - an order that remains in place now - and initially ruled
in favor of the industry, striking down portions of the law.

But the Montana Supreme Court overruled him, saying he had improperly
applied "strict scrutiny" to the provisions, when the lower standard
of "rational basis" was all that was needed.

It sent the case back to Reynolds to rule, using the less stringent
standard.

Goetz argued Tuesday that the restrictive provisions should still be
stricken, even under the rational-basis standard, because they prevent
people who need medical marijuana from getting a product the state has
said is legal.

He also said the provisions obviously aren't needed, since the number
of users has fallen from 30,000 to 8,000, even without them.

Segrest said just because things have improved doesn't mean the
Legislature's concerns aren't still valid - and that maybe it expected
the full restrictions to reduce use even further.
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MAP posted-by: Matt