TOWNS REACT TO MARIJUANA BIZ WITH BANS, MORATORIUMS

Anaconda - Deer Lodge County Commissioner Robert Pierce was among the
62 percent of Montanans who voted to legalize marijuana for medical
purposes six years ago.

"It was compassion," Pierce said.

But then something showed up in his town that prompted Pierce to take
another vote on the issue, this time directing his city and county to
withdraw from most parts of the law: a giant marijuana leaf painted on
the storefront of a would-be medical marijuana establishment set up
right across the street from the Anaconda Dairy Queen.

"And that's wrong, in my opinion," Pierce said.

Pierce and his commission, who voted in late May on a six-month
moratorium for all growing and selling of marijuana in the county, is
hardly alone. As the medical marijuana industry has exploded in
Montana, county governments, lawmakers, tribal councils and others
have grappled to get their hands around the trend.

In Kalispell and Billings the concern is inflamed by violence and
vandalism connected to medical marijuana. But in other parts of state,
the concerns are more mundane, focusing on zoning, business licensure
and electrical standards for grow houses.

The burgeoning industry has surprised even medical marijuana's
strongest supporters, including Tom Daubert, of Helena, the man behind
the successful 2004 initiative that legalized medicinal pot. Daubert
says he fully supports state efforts to more tightly regulate the
industry. He said what's happened to marijuana in recent months is
nothing like what he envisioned.

Daubert is part of a co-op of growers in Helena. Their offices are
discreet and unmarked, nothing like the gaily painted storefronts
across the state that so irritate both law enforcement and the general
public. Those kinds of displays, Daubert said, are "nails in the
coffin of this law."

Indeed, at least one lawmaker, Sen. Jim Shockley, R-Victor, has
proposed nailing up the whole thing: repealing the law and starting
completely over.

"I don't think (voters) knew the pig they were buying in the poke," he
said in a recent interview.

Voters may also get another crack at the issue. A quickly formed group
has organized to put repealing the law back on the ballot this fall,
although organizers have only weeks to collect 25,000 necessary
signatures to do so.

The numbers tell part of the story. If a Montanan has a doctor's
prescription for a traditional drug, he or she has just over 1,000
licensed pharmacists to choose from. But if you've got a doctor's card
for medical marijuana, there are about 2,800 licensed "caregivers,"
and the regulations and educational requirements for caregivers are
nothing compared with the degree and professional licensure
requirements of a traditional pharmacist.

Shockley said it's just that kind of wide-open nature to medical
marijuana that needs changing. From growing to distributing, the state
has very few regulations on the industry, and laying the groundwork
for a functional medical marijuana program will require more than
"just tweaking," he said.

The Legislature will not meet for another six months, meaning any
statewide change is not in the near future. Into that void, has
stepped a long list of Montana cities and towns.

Take a look:

n After a medical marijuana storefront was firebombed, the Billings
City Council voted 8-2 in favor of a six-month moratorium on granting
business licenses to any new medical marijuana caregivers.

n Kalispell also instituted such a ban after a medical marijuana
grower there was beaten to death.

n The tribal council of the Salish and Kootenai Confederated Tribes
voted last month to opt out of the state medical marijuana law
entirely, meaning tribal members and members of recognized tribes
within the Flathead Reservation are forbidden from growing, selling or
using medical marijuana.

n The city of Deer Lodge has banned new medical marijuana businesses,
and

n Anaconda-Deer Lodge adopted a similar ban.

The buzz is so hot among local governments reacting to medical
marijuana, the state legislative branch has written up a memo for
local governments to refer to on how to regulate and zone for the industry.

Mark Sweeney, another Anaconda-Deer Lodge commissioner, was the only
person who voted against that county's ban. He said the county has
real concerns about where growing operations take place, what sorts of
electrical standards should be in place, where storefronts can be
located and had particular concerns about growing operations in
residential parts of the smelting town where old houses sit very close
to one another.

"It a citizen's initiative without a lot of direction," he
said.

Sweeney said the issue has been a real education for the commission,
which mostly deals with paving roads and hallmarks of municipal
regulation. Pot was not on their radar.

"It's a can of worms," Sweeney said.