SPREAD OF POT INDUSTRY, VIOLENCE ERODING SOME SUPPORT

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 front 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, which 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 issue.

In Kalispell and Billings, the concern has been 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 marijauna's
strongest supporters, including Tom Daubert of Helena, the man behind
the successful 2004 initiative that legalized medicinal pot. Daubert
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 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 over 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 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:

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.

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

The tribal council of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes
voted last month to opt out of the state medical marijuana law
entirely, meaning tribal members and members of other 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, the state legislative branch has written a memo for local
governments on how to regulate and zone 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 grow operations in
residential parts of town.

"It's a citizens' 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 standard municipal
regulations. Pot was not on their radar.

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