COUNTIES, CITIES, LAWMAKERS, TRIBES RUSH TO MANAGE
INDUSTRY

Medical Marijuana's Popularity Catches Many Off-guard

HELENA -- 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 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 blossomed in
Montana, county governments, lawmakers, tribal councils and others
have grappled with what to do about 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 not
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 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
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 signatures from
voters.

The numbers tell part of the story. If a Montanan has a doctor's
prescription for a traditional drug, he or she has just more than
1,000 licensed pharmacists to choose from. But if you've got a
doctor's card for medical marijuana, there are more than 2,700
licensed "caregivers," and the regulations and educational
requirements for caregivers is 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 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 doesn't meet for another six months, meaning any
statewide change is not imminent. Many Montana cities and towns have
stepped in to fill that void.

Take a look:

After two medical marijuana storefronts were firebombed, the Billings
City Council voted 8-2 for a six-month moratorium on granting business
licenses to any new medical marijuana caregivers.

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

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.

The city of Deer Lodge has banned new medical marijuana businesses,
and Anaconda-Deer Lodge adopted a similar ban.

The buzz is so hot among local governments reacting to medical
marijuana that the state legislative branch has written 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 to vote 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 and 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 its radar.

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