BOOM TIMES FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA BUSINESSES

Medical marijuana is rapidly becoming big business in Missoula, but
it has emerged with very distinct growing pains.

Since September, the city of Missoula has processed 28 applications
for business licenses related to the commerce of medical marijuana.

I haven't seen anything come on like this," said Scott Paasch,
account coordinator for the city of Missoula's Finance Department,
which oversees business licenses.

We get at least one or two people a day who come in and at least
three or four phone calls a day from people who want to know what
would it require to get a license in the city to dispense or deliver
medical marijuana," he said. "This isn't a business boom. It's more
like an explosion."

In Missoula specifically, the bumper crop of entrepreneurs includes a
wide variety of services.

Montana Caregivers Network is a resource service that, among many
things, connects patients to caregivers and helps people find doctors
who support the use of medical marijuana.

Other businesses, like Zoo Mountain Natural Care Inc., a member of
the Missoula Area Chamber of Commerce, have commercial storefronts
and offer clinic-like settings with caregivers on staff who help
patients choose from a smorgasbord of marijuana varieties.

Still other licensees cultivate the plants that produce medical
marijuana in facilities outside the city limits, but deliver the
final product in Missoula, and many are individuals who distribute
the medicine from their home, Paasch explained.

All of them are certified "caregivers" as required by Montana's
Medical Marijuana Act, Initiative No. 148, which voters approved in 2004.

By state law, each caregiver is allowed to serve an unlimited number
of registered patients. For each individual patient, a caregiver is
allowed to have six plants and an ounce of usable marijuana.

Likewise, each registered patient who has one of the qualifying
conditions (see related graph) and a doctor's recommendation for
marijuana as treatment is allowed to assign one caregiver, grow six
marijuana plants and possess an ounce of usable marijuana.

Mark Muir said he isn't surprised by the rapid acceleration of
Missoula's medical marijuana economy. The city's police chief
believes it is a direct result of a change in federal perspective.
While it is still illegal to grow or use marijuana under federal law,
Muir explained, the Obama administration announced last fall that
federal law on this matter would defer to state law.

I believe that this was a good-faith gesture that relied on trust
that states who passed medical marijuana laws would have controls in
place to adequately handle the issues surrounding this drug," he
said. "But with respect to medical marijuana, Montana just didn't
have enough controls in place when the change in policy took place at
the federal level.

Now we are trying to close the barn door after the horses got out."

As this niche sector continues to boom, everyone connected with it --
from patients to caregivers to community leaders and politicians --
has a growing list of concerns that revolve around two main issues:
regulation and oversight.

While state law allows for possession, use and cultivation of medical
marijuana by qualified individuals, it is silent on key issues, said
Jason Christ, who launched the Montana Caregivers Network in Missoula
and received the city's first medical marijuana business license.

Among the many gray areas: Do "grow sites" need to be identified? Can
patients and caregivers form growing cooperatives? Do renters need to
tell landlords about their medical marijuana use? If a patient or
caregiver lives within 1,000 feet of a school -- which is a drug-free
zone -- can he or she grow, use or possess medical marijuana?

Adjustments to the law are needed because demand for usable medical
marijuana has far outpaced the supply, and it's illegal to import the
drug from out of state, said Christ.

Such issues prompt both skepticism and concern in the law enforcement
community, Muir said.

There's just no control over sales, over the amount of dosage that is
given out, the amount of refills, the pricing of the product. If the
law, such as it is, is being followed, who is making sure patients
are only getting their supply from one caregiver and caregivers
aren't selling to people who aren't their card-carrying patient?"
Muir said. "There's no control over any aspect of who can be a
caregiver and who can be a patient.

It's a joke. The law is so loose, it's no wonder the list of
registered patients grows by the hundreds every month."

Adding to those many issues is the headache around monitoring the
many digestible forms of medical marijuana, such as tinctures, honey,
oil and brownies. Aside from the difficulties of ensuring state and
federal food production guidelines are followed in the manufacture of
such items, there's no way to determine how much marijuana is in each
product and how that plays into the ounce possession rule for each
patient and caregiver.

Our laws around medical marijuana don't fit with our society's
medical protocol," Muir said. "There are no medical standards here."

State Rep. Diane Sands, D-Missoula, plans to bring many of these
emerging issues to light this month when she calls together the
legislative Children, Families, Health and Human Services Interim
Committee she chairs.

Because the state Department of Public Health and Human Services
regulates medical marijuana, Sands said she has offered up the
committee to help sort through the emerging problems, prioritize them
and develop a list of options for the 2011 legislative session.

It's imperative to do so, Sands said, because the haze and conflicts
that surround medical marijuana will only increase.

Consider this: As of March 7, 10,582 Montana residents are legally
entitled to use medical marijuana, and 2,635 Montanans can legally
provide the drug, according to data from the state Department of
Public Health and Human Services.

Compare those numbers, which are expected to be noticeably higher
later this month when April's data are released, with the
department's early records.

In March 2005, Montana had 86 registered patients who qualified for
medical marijuana and 35 caregivers. Just a year ago, there were
2,074 patients and 640 caregivers.

I think everyone is surprised by the volume of increase," said Roy
Kemp, deputy administrator of the state's Quality Assurance Division
in the DPHHS.

Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg is eager for the state
Legislature to take a hard look at the law and provide clear direction.

He's not surprised to learn that the largest age group of Montana's
card-carrying medical marijuana patients -- 2,635 of the 10,582
patients -- are ages 21 to 30. Patients age 51 to 60 comprise the
second-largest group, or 2,407 of the total.

It's obvious to me that there's an explosion in this business and to
me it's equally obvious that the law that was passed by initiative is
being grossly abused by people who want to smoke marijuana," Van
Valkenburg said. "This law was intended for people who had severe
pain or an illness that couldn't be treated with traditional medical means.

I think it was probably working in that fashion until the current
federal administration said they weren't going to enforce federal law
in states that had medical marijuana laws and people saw the chance
to make a lot of money with the quasi-legalization of medical
marijuana -- and off they went."

As one would expect, Jason Christ sees things differently. He says
the federal government's change of heart allows him to help a lot of people.

Although he boasted to the Missoula Independent last month that he
would be a millionaire by the end of the year, Christ says financial
gain isn't his goal.

Christ said he knows what it is like to suffer and to have conditions
that are best treated with medical marijuana, not modern medicine. He
has celiac disease and hemorrhoids -- and he wouldn't want anyone
else with a delibilating condition to be denied the medicinal plant
as a treatment option.

I do this to help people and end suffering and make it accessible for
people to find a doctor who recommend medicinal cannibis," Christ
said. "I'm a patient and I'm a caregiver and I help people get in
front of a doctor."

Coming Monday in the Missoulian: In absence of regulations, the
medical marijuana industry struggles to set its own standards.