Billings imposes moratorium on marijuana dispensaries

by: Jay Stevens

Tue May 11, 2010 at 13:59:58 PM MST

A Montana city council has voted for a six-month moratorium on new medical marijuana businesses.

The early Tuesday morning vote came after a long evening of public comment and debate, and followed two arson attempts on two Billings medical marijuana businesses.
Under the moratorium, business licenses won't be issued to new marijuana businesses and existing businesses must stay in their current locations.

The council's 8-2 vote came at 1:35 a.m., after the council flirted with the idea of an all-out ban on all medical marijuana sales in the city.

Despite the appearance of caving in to Billings' pot terrorists, the decision is probably not a bad idea:

Patients & Families United, Montana's patient-rights group, called on Montanans to unite in opposition to "terrorist-styled" violence targeting medical marijuana facilities. But it also called for "more dignified and professional" behavior by facility operators.

Some actions by medical marijuana caregivers are "not what was intended or envisioned by those of us who advocated the medical marijuana law in 2004," Tom Daubert, founder and director of Patients & Families United, said in a statement. "The law needs to be modernized, with regulation and oversight designed to prevent some of the undignified and unprofessional behavior we are seeing."

I can't wait for people to blame pot for the firebombing.

Still, all the craziness around medicinal marijuana should give advocates of legalization of pot some pause - not in their efforts to decriminalize a relatively harmless drug and thereby give the "War on Drugs" a body blow, but in causing them to realize that there needs to be a lot of thought given to how to regulate the drug once it's legal.

An act of terror in Billings, Montana

by: Jay Stevens

Mon May 10, 2010 at 08:13:23 AM MST

Billings fire officials say a firebomb was thrown into a medical marijuana business and "NOT IN OUR TOWN" was spray painted on the storefront.

Thoughts:

Wow.

Really? I have to say, with all the currents of anger swirling across the country, I would not have expected a marijuana clinic to be firebombed. A government building, yes. A political office, yes. A marijuana clinic? No.

I'm guessing the Pakistani Taliban wasn't behind this. I'm guessing a home-grown Billings Montanan threw the bomb. I'm guessing it won't get much national coverage, it won't cause conservatives to demand any suspects' Miranda rights be denied, and no one will be calling for the torture of those that did it.

Question: why not?

Dazed and confused: Montana wrestles pot

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Apr 08, 2010 at 07:32:46 AM MST

Tom Daubert, founder and director of Patients and Families United who was involved in the final phase of drafting the 2004 Medical Marijuana Act, said he expects the 2011 Legislature to consider changing the law.

"There is no question there are a number of vague, complicating things in the law," he said, which has made it difficult not only for law enforcement but for patients and caregivers. "My goal is to come up with a consensus proposal."

Missoula's Diane Sands plans to lead the effort in the 2011 legislative session to address the myriad issues surrounding medicinal marijuana.

Have to say, the Indy's editors make an interesting argument against local municipal hostility towards medicinal marijuana dispensaries. Essentially, they contrast the addiction and accompanying recent violence surrounding prescription medication with medicinal marijuana:

These spates bookend a year that saw Montana's medical marijuana industry grow exponentially. Last March the state recorded about 1,400 registered medical marijuana patients. This March, there are more than 10,000. Despite the rise, we haven't seen strung-out, desperate patients heist any medical marijuana clinics. On the contrary, we suspect that the trend has gotten quite a few people off of the prescription painkillers that have proven so addictive and turned fresh-faced college kids into felons. It all makes us wonder why so many Montana communities are considering limiting or outright banning medical marijuana shops.

John Adams:

Can somebody explain the argument against medical marijuana? It seems illogical to condone the use of prescription pharmaceuticals--many of which are psychoactive and can cause serious and often life-threatening side effects--and at the same time be opposed to medical marijuana.

It's reefer madness, folks. A paternalistic, patronizing tone from the state's authorities who are nervously eying their drug-busting budgets and who can't believe Montanans are heartily sick of the fear-mongering around pot they're dishing out.

Still, state regulatory guidelines are desperately needed. Let's hope that Sands get 'er done.

Reefer Madness strikes Kalispell

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Feb 15, 2010 at 06:19:02 AM MST

The Kalispell City Council plans to consider an emergency ordinance placing a 90-day moratorium on medical marijuana businesses.

Council members on Tuesday are scheduled to consider the moratorium in the wake of the announcement of such a business planning to open half a block from an elementary school.

I can understand considering zoning issues for businesses making and dispensing medicinal marijuana - is it a clinic? a chemical plant? - but what does having it near a school have anything to do with anything? It's legal...are they worried people who make and distribute medicinal marijuana are morally compromised? That those suffering from debilitating and fatal illnesses who use medicinal marijuana are going to somehow gravitate towards Kalispell's kiddies, drawn towards them with pot-fueled-malice, like moths to flame?

Obviously the idea of marijuana dispensaries are jolting Town Fathers across that state. Prejudice remains. Visions of "Reefer Madness" swirl. Which I get. But I also get that just because the feds have laid off obstructing medicinal marijuana dispensing in Montana and elsewhere doesn't mean that town officials won't...

Guns, medicinal marijuana, stream access, the death penalty, and a new blog

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 08:38:37 AM MST

First off, for the legislature, 4&20 blackbirds is the place you want to be. Jhwygirl's been doing a swell job covering the doings in Helena -- yesterday she posted the hearings scheduled for this week.

Kendall Van Dyk's stream access bill made it out of committee, while its idiot stepsister version of the bill, sponsored by Ken Patterson, looks to have died. Jhwygirl's optimistic about HB190 -- and I think she should be...for the House vote. We'll see what happens to it in the Senate, where it would need Republican support.

Krayton Kerns' new gun bill -- HB228 -- is an odd duck to say the least. It appeared among some other bills that clarified Montana's castle doctrine, sponsored by Larry Jent and Kendall Van Dyk, which appear to have the support of...well...everybody.

Not so much Kerns' bill. In its original incarnation, it included a provision that said employees "have a right to carry a gun to their workplace." If the employer bans firearms, the employer "must provide similar protection to the employee" that a gun-packin' employee would have. Or something. Naturally the Montana CoC objected -- the idea of the Krayton Kerns of the world bringing heat to their offices no doubt put a few white hairs on employers, not to mention the law is a clear effort to put the power of the government over private property holders and business owners. (Why is it that some conservatives are so eager to use the power of government to force people to adhere to their ow, personal beliefs?)

You know the rest of the story. When the CoC says, "jump," a Republican's response is, "how high?" News came that the bring-your-gun-to-work provision would be removed at hearing that same day. Still, the bill would dictate to landlords and hotel owners that they don't have a right to make rules for tenant on their property. And it includes the right for citizens to use "reasonable force" to make a citizen's arrest -- which, I assume, means they can use a gun. Which sounds sketchy to me. On the other hand, if it passes, Dick Cheney better not show his face around Montana, eh?

Hearing is tomorrow on Kerns' bill. I'm curious to see who testifies.

John Adams has a blog! It's awesome. A couple of days ago, he ably summed up the dueling bills circulating in Helena surrounding medicinal marijuana, the worst of which is Verdell Jackson's SB212, which essentially singles out registered marijuana users for mandatory extra scrutiny if they're involved in a traffic accident or traffic stop. Which, if you think about it for like 30 seconds, seems like a terrible idea. Make it mandatory to give a guy a blood test if he's caught going 40 in a 35mph zone? Police officers are already empowered to take extra action if they think a driver is impaired: why do we need this bill, other than to terrorize registered marijuana users? Answer: we don't.

Oh, and incidentally, I agree with Adams here:

Can somebody explain the argument against medical marijuana? It seems illogical to condone the use of prescription pharmaceuticals--many of which are psychoactive and can cause serious and often life-threatening side effects--and at the same time be opposed to medical marijuana.

And finally, Dave Wanzenreid introduced SB 236, which would abolish the death penalty in Montana. In 2007, a death penalty ban passed the Senate with bipartisan support, but was quashed in the House. This year, the proposed ban hasn't made much of a splash in the media, despite being supported by the Montana Association of Churches.

The death penalty played an interesting role in the Democratic primary for state attorney general, but it seemed to have fallen off the map since then...

State medicinal marijuana laws supreme, SCOTUS says

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 06:23:56 AM MST

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday by a California city that asked the justices to overturn a lower court ruling requiring police to return medical marijuana that they seize from a patient.

In the November 2007 ruling, a state appeals court said California's medical marijuana law entitles patients to recover pot wrongfully seized by police.

What's this mean?

"It's now settled that state law enforcement officers cannot arrest medical marijuana patients or seize their medicine simply because they prefer the contrary federal law," said Joseph Elford, chief counsel of the advocacy group Americans for Safe Access and lawyer for the plaintiff in the Garden Grove case.

In short, this should give incoming Attorney General Steve Bullock all the assurance he needs to ensure that police and other law enforcement officials complay with Montana's law allowing the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

I like Dominic Holden's quote from a post relating to this decision:

The very notion of a "Drug Free America" has always been, as some famous dead guy once said, about creating laws in conflict with human nature in order to punish people. Cops now have to capitulate with drug laws they disagree with.

Hey! Maybe Scott Sales would like to take up legislation akin to Massachusetts to decriminalize possession of marijuana?

Beaverhead County persists in prosecuting medicinal marijuana user

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 11:29:53 AM MST

"Their conduct in operating a lab and marijuana grow is a threat to public safety," Beaverhead County attorney Marv McCann said. "Any type of benefit that they can receive from the marijuana, they can address with their doctors address with their doctors and receive other prescription drugs for." But state public defender Jon Moog said the couple needed the drug and were registered with the state as legal users. He said it wasn't a surprise that the defense would be based on the state's recently passed medical marijuana law.

He rejected McCann's analogy to a person allowed to drink alcohol but then committing a crime by driving drunk.

"Alcohol doesn't have any medicinal purposes," Moog said. "Here they have a doctor saying they need the marijuana for medicinal purposes." Tucker agreed and said despite McCann's request, the couple could continue to possess and use marijuana even while the case is being prosecuted.

"It's pretty clear the state doesn't want your clients to have any marijuana at all," he said.

District Judge Loren Tucker agreed, and ruled to allow Day to continue using marijuana during the trial.

I'm not sure why Beaverhead officials are plowing ahead in this case. They're arguing that Day - because he was growing 96 plants - was intending to deal pot. But unless there are witnesses I haven't heard about, there's no evidence that he actually deals or intended to deal, while no one's disputing that Day and his wife use pot for medicinal reasons. They're even registered with the state as such.

Does Beaverhead County disagree with the voter-approved medicinal marijuana laws? Or are they pursuing the case to avoid admitting they made an egregious mistake by arresting Day in the first place? What are they trying to prove here?

Whatever the reason, it seems a waste of taxpayer money.  

DOC jailing Montanans for using legally-prescribed drugs

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Mar 06, 2008 at 12:40:15 PM MST

A proposal to modify the conditions for probation and parole for Montana criminal offenders was met with resistance in the second and final hearing on the Department of Corrections' proposed rule changes.

Critics of the measure said parolees would face higher recidivism and unemployment rates, and increased medical costs and physical suffering if the rule is approved as written. The measure would, in part, prohibit supervised offenders from using medical marijuana, drinking alcohol, gambling or incurring debt.

"This proposed rule is illegal and it completely defies Montana's medical marijuana law," said Tom Daubert, founder and director of Patients & Families United, the group that spearheaded the 2004 voter-approved initiative legalizing medical marijuana in the state. "That law makes it quite clear that people who are under department supervision, who are not inside a corrections facility, such as probationers and parolees, can use medical marijuana as authorized under the law."

So...if you're on parole...and you use marijuana to treat a debilitative medical condition, under these rules, you'd go back to prison. And the use of marijuana to treat a medical condition is legal, according to state law.

Then why is the Montana Department of Corrections planning to throw parolees back into prison for using medicinal marijuana?

Ron Alsbury, chief of probation and parole for the DOC, said the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's position on medical marijuana is clear. He added that marijuana use, for any reason, is a federal offense, regardless of state law.

Er...since when does Montana back down in the face of the incursion of federal power?

And forget federal power for a moment. Does this make sense? Why do we want to spend state taxpayer money jailing folks for using a medicine prescribed legally by a doctor? Is that any of our business to begin with?

The Tribune story notes that the DOC is taking public comments on its proposal. You can submit written comments to Myrna Omholt-Mason at PO Box 201301, Helena, MT, 59620.

(For an idea of who's using medicinal marijuana, check out Rob Harper's profile of Dillon's "pot baron," Scott Day.)

William F. Buckley, Jr:

Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great. The laws aren't exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating. General rules based on individual victims are unwise. And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are very difficult to defend. If all our laws were paradigmatic, imagine what we would do to anyone caught lighting a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Or - exulting in life in the paradigm - committing adultery. Send them all to Guantanamo?

The Dillon pot bust, one month later

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Mar 03, 2008 at 10:40:42 AM MST

Felony charges are expected to be filed next week in a large scale marijuana bust that occurred near here recently.

Local and state law officers seized 96 pot plants from a mobile home north of Dillon, said Blair Martenson, an agent in charge with the Southwest Montana Drug Task Force in Butte.

The home included plants in all stages of growth, which is typical of larger pot growing operations, he said.

"This was a marijuana growing operation that was pretty well sophisticated with the way it was set up," Martenson said.

The reality is, of course, a bit different:

Scott Day, who is terminally ill, was front and center at the conference just one month after the DEA's Southwest Montana Drug Task Force raided his home and reported they confiscated 96 marijuana plants. Day has not been charged in the incident.

For the last 12 years, Day said, he has managed unthinkable chronic pain - the result of a degenerative congenital condition called mucopolysaccharidosis - with marijuana.

"It's debilitating," Day said. "It hurts so much and right now I'm without access to pain management that was working," he said.

The 34-year-old Day said he suffers arthritis, muscle spasms, joint inflammation and pain, disintegrated spinal discs, cataracts and glaucoma as a result of the disease that often proves fatal in childhood.

"Without marijuana my muscles hurt. Everything hurts," Day said of the weeks he's spent without marijuana since the bust.

Glad to see we're using taxpayer money and valuable police work on "scumbags" like these.

While Montana passed a voters' initiative to legalize medicinal marijuana - and it's possible Day can still avoid prosecution under state law -- the SCOTUS allowed lawmakers to ignore state drug laws when they conflict with federal law.

Tom Daubert: "These are the only patients required to break federal law every day and make their own medicine. They need to be left alone."

Amen.