SENATE PANEL ENDORSES BILL EXPANDING MEDICAL-MARIJUANA LAW

HELENA -A bill increasing the amount of medical marijuana that can be
possessed by patients won a surprise endorsement from a Senate
committee late Friday, sending it to the full Senate for further action.

Senate Bill 326 also expands the types of diseases that can be treated
legally with marijuana in Montana and has other changes that
supporters said makes it easier for approved patients to get the
amount of drugs they need. I'm overjoyed," patient and caregiver Eric
Billings of Lewistown said after the vote by the Senate Public Health
Committee. "I can't think the committee enough.

We really want to work with law enforcement to make this program
workable," he continued. "The committee got it today. They really
understood."

The panel voted 5-2 to endorse SB326, but not before amending it to
allow patients to possess up to three ounces of marijuana rather than
the 12 ounces in the original bill.

Current state law says patients and caregivers, who are people
licensed to supply drugs to a registered medical marijuana patient,
can possess only one ounce of marijuana at a time.

Supporters of the bill said the single ounce is far from adequate,
forcing patients to repeatedly make new attempts to acquire what they
need.

Two Republicans and three Democrats on the panel voted for the bill,
including Sen. Dave Lewis, R-Helena.

Lewis said he hadn't been planning on supporting the measure, but that
a woman he knew in Helena who had ovarian cancer "slipped a note in my
pocket (after the hearing) and said, ?This treatment is the only thing
that is keeping me sane.'"

Tom Daubert of Patients and Families United, a group formed by medical
marijuana patients and their families, said "the power of patient
testimony" at the Feb. 6 hearing clearly moved committee members.

Their vote today signals their compassionate support," he said after
Friday's vote.

Sen. Ron Erickson, D-Missoula, the sponsor of the bill, said Friday
that anyone who sits through a hearing and listens to patients'
testimony "knows that this is one of the laws in Montana that does a
heck of a lot of good."

SB326 now heads to the Senate floor, perhaps next week, where it faces
a debate and vote by the full Senate.

Montana voters enacted the state's medical marijuana law with a 2004
initiative, allowing those with debilitating diseases to become
registered patients with approval from a physician. Supporters say the
drug relieves chronic pain suffered by cancer patients and others.

The law said patients or caregivers could possess up to one ounce of
the drug and have up to six plants.

SB326 increases the amount to three ounces; says patients or
caregivers can have up to six "mature" plants; allows patients to
acquire the drug from more than one caregiver; and adds several
diseases that can be treated with marijuana, including diabetes,
post-traumatic stress disorder, Alzheimer's disease and hepatitis C.

Billings, who has HIV, said Friday that the drug has "changed my
life," relieving chronic pain and enabling him to eat, and saves about
$30,000 a year in prescription drug costs, which had been covered by
Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance for the poor.

Joining Lewis in voting for the measure were Sens. Terry Murphy,
R-Cardwell; Trudi Schmidt, D-Great Falls, Cliff Larsen, D-Missoula;
and Carol Juneau, D-Browning. Voting against it were Sens. Roy Brown,
R-Billings, and Greg Hinkle, R-Thompson Falls.