CONSENSUS CAN SOLVE MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROBLEMS

Montana's medical marijuana law needs numerous clarifications and
improvements. Even those of us who helped write it, and who have
advocated for the rights of seriously ill patients ever since, agree
wholeheartedly with law enforcement, civic leaders and others who now
call for change.

In fact, Patients & Families United has proposed improvements to the
law in both of the last two legislative sessions. One of our bills,
which passed the Senate (but not the House) in 2009, as amended would
have created regulatory oversight and auditing of caregivers that
pretty much everyone now agrees is sorely needed in a stricter form.

Particularly in light of recent federal policy changes, our law is not
working as its proponents hoped, and patients are suffering
unnecessarily from problems its vagueness has allowed. The same
weaknesses in the law underlie most of the ongoing
controversies.

The good news is that for all the complexities involved in medical
cannabis -- and it is much more complicated than most observers
appreciate -- consensus is at hand on most of the core issues now
making news. Patients and law enforcement officials, for example, have
a lot more in common than not, and are largely united on the central
questions.

Those allowed to grow cannabis should be licensed, and those who do so
for more than a few patients should be heavily regulated and
monitored, either by the state health department or the agriculture
department or both. (Currently, Montana is one of only three states
that allow large-scale growing without state inspections.) And those
allowed to dispense cannabis products to legal patients also must be
regulated in a way that delivers complete transparency and
accountability.

Patients deserve a system that is clearly defined and controlled,
ensuring that all cannabis products are safe and produced legally in
Montana. Everyone, including patients, deserves to know that none of
what any licensee produces goes to the illegal "black market."
Required, regulated transparency and professionalism would -- pun fully
intended -- weed out the corrupt and amateurish opportunists who have
come to dominate the appearance (and too much of the reality) of
medical marijuana in Montana.

Licensed growers and dispensers would benefit from having security
standards outlined in the law, to safeguard plants and products and to
prevent any of it from getting into illegal hands. Conscientious
caregivers go to great lengths to protect themselves and their crops
from criminals, and they appreciate having positive, trusting
relations with local law enforcement officials. Spelling things out
more clearly in the law would support and enhance this
cooperation.

Exploitation of the law's physician recommendation requirement, at
circus-atmosphere "clinics" that process hundreds of people in a
single day, must come to an end. Montanans voted for compassion for
patients who genuinely suffer certain conditions, but only when a
physician makes judgments based on a clear diagnosis or review of
medical records in a professional manner and in the context of a bona
fide relationship, not in a hotel ballroom or abandoned warehouse.
Financial relationships between caregivers and physicians should be
outlawed, plain and simple. So should public use of cannabis, by anyone.

The law, for legal, deserving patients, is simply too precious to
squander. A recent study by a Great Falls physician found that a
whopping two-thirds of cannabis patients in Montana have reduced their
use of other, riskier and addicting pharmaceuticals. And the patients
uniformly report better health with fewer side effects through the use
of legal cannabis.

The law is intended to honor the central Montana values of freedom and
self-reliance, to grant worthy patients the liberty to use, in the
privacy of their own homes, an ancient, proven natural plant for
healing purposes. With consensus amendments at the 2011 Legislature,
we can fulfill that goal and end the craziness.