SCHWEITZER VISITS MEDICAL MARIJUANA CLINIC, SAYS LAW NEEDS
REVISION

With a gathering cloud of controversy swirling around Montana's
medical marijuana industry, Gov. Brian Schweitzer paid his first visit
to a medical marijuana clinic on Thursday, where he made clear both
his continued support for a legally sanctioned medical marijuana
industry, and also his belief that new legislation governing the
industry is both imminent and necessary.

"I think it's unrealistic to say to legitimate medical patients that
have found benefit from medical marijuana that you can no longer
access this," said Schweitzer. "I think we need to tighten up the
laws. ... The business has gotten out ahead of the regulatory
environment and we need to build some boundaries."

In a 45-minute meeting with Rick Rosio, president and CEO of
Missoula's Montana Pain Management, the governor received a crash
course in the challenges facing professional medical marijuana
caregivers in Montana. Rosio, who started his Missoula-based growing
operation and caregiver business in December 2008, said the lack of
regulation and standardized business practices hurts his business as
much as it worries citizens who are unfamiliar with the applications
and benefits of medical marijuana.

"If I sold hot dogs, I could go down and get a line of credit" from a
commercial lender, said Rosio. "With the cash flow I have, we could
show the ability to generate tremendous revenue. But none of the
financial institutions will work with us on a credit line because they
don't understand the business.

"I pay taxes, I pay FICA, I do everything every other business does,
and I'll tell you what, I'm in the hole a half a million bucks."

"Well," quipped Schweitzer, "you're like every other farmer in
Montana."

Jokes aside, Rosio took pains to paint his business as a growing,
legitimate operation, pointing to its acquisition by Cannabis Science
Inc., a publicly traded company based in Colorado Springs, Colo.,
earlier this week (see related story).

"We are the first cannabis clinic to be owned by a publicly traded
company in order to develop this model and to provide more jobs in
Montana," said Rosio. "We don't hide anything. Our books are all open
here."

"It's a medicinal botanical that requires special handling permits,"
added Rosio. "That's it. Take the marijuana out of it, and it's just
an (agriculture) product."

Schweitzer, who earned college degrees in agronomy and soil science
and spent years as a rancher in Whitefish, said he was impressed by
the sophistication of Rosio's operation. He said he believed the
primary issue facing the medical marijuana industry in Montana today
is "an image problem" - made notably worse in recent months by
scattered cases of violence involving registered medical marijuana
caregivers in the state.

Schweitzer even admitted that he harbored his own preconceived - and
not entirely charitable - notions of what Rosio's business would look
like before his visit.

"Conventional folks like myself, we kind of assume this is going to be
a bunch of folks wearing their caps backwards and selling marijuana to
their pals," said Schweitzer. "There's a concern among most Montanans
that there are people that are using marijuana that want it, don't
need it. ... (But) I don't see that happening here."

Schweitzer and Rosio discussed several of the ideas being floated
around the state to tighten regulation of the industry. Both agreed
that the number of independent, commercial growers should be limited,
and that taxation of medical marijuana was likely necessary in order
to pay for increased regulation.

"If we have some 1,400 or 4,000 of these providers, it's impossible
for the state of Montana to monitor the growing and the distribution,"
said Schweitzer. "Maybe we need to severely limit the number of people
who have grow operations. Also, limit the number of providers, in much
the same way as we limit the number of lawyers we have, we limit the
number of doctors we have, we limit the number of pharmacists we have
. and we need to inspect these operations to make sure they're
growing only what they need for their patients and they're supplying
marijuana only for their patients."

For his part, Rosio said that caregivers - particularly smaller
operators - and patients who choose to grow their own medical
marijuana struggle to remain within the letter of the law, given the
strict limits on the number of plants and amount of processed
marijuana allowed for each registered medical marijuana patient.

"The mom-and-pops who manufacture for themselves, who are taking care
of themselves, have a great difficulty staying legal," said Rosio. "We
need (to legalize) caregiver-to-caregiver transfers ... to be able to
provide overages to other licensed caregivers."

Ultimately, Schweitzer called Thursday's visit a learning experience -
though he was careful to keep an arm's distance from Montana Pain
Management's products.

"I'm a little uncomfortable around all of this," said Schweitzer as
Rosio showed him a tray of processed medical marijuana, adding a note
of caution to the First Dog at his side:

"Don't eat anything, Jag."