CURES FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA?

It can't be soon enough for Montana's political leaders to start
grappling with the unintended consequences of a medical marijuana law
approved by voters in 2004.

Thankfully, lawmakers have been meeting in Helena recently to craft
some solutions well ahead of next year's legislative session.

To put it bluntly, the law has been exploited by people seeking
marijuana cards to supposedly solve any and every ailment that might
qualify them for a card. Sure, there are card holders who have bona
fide medical problems that may be alleviated by marijuana.

But it's obvious that, overall, Montana voters have been
gamed.

It's also obvious that a reckoning lies ahead.

"What did the voters think they were voting for and can we get back to
those basic issues of providing limited, controlled access for people
who the public thought really needed this as compassionate care?" asks
state Rep. Diane Sands, D-Missoula.

Exactly.

They certainly didn't envision "cannabis caravans," a sort of
traveling road show that allowed a group called the Montana Caregivers
Network to sign up hundreds of people a day during stops in Montana
cities.

The clinics played a major role in the state's medical marijuana
patient registry jumping from 842 people at the end of 2008 to about
20,000 at the end of last month. They also played a big part in the
Montana Caregivers Network raking in more than $1 million over the
last year.

An enterprising endeavor indeed, but the network's leaders now say
they are no longer going to do the traveling clinics.

That may have something to do with the state medical board ruling in
May that doctors who recommend medical marijuana must follow the same
standards that are applied in prescribing other medication. The board
subsequently fined a physician who consulted with about 150 people
over 14 hours at one of the clinics.

There are plenty of other consequences, particularly for law
enforcement officers who have been running into an array of
uncertainties when it comes to people in possession of marijuana.

For instance, Flathead County sheriff's deputies recently responded to
the death of a man by natural causes, and found that the man's home
was also occupied by a marijuana care provider and 49 marijuana plants
- -- well over the six that could legally be in his possession.

It turned out that another care provider owned six plants, so 37
plants were seized. This is the type of stuff that officers are
encountering frequently.

The Montana County Attorneys Association maintains that there is no
way to tell what is legal medical marijuana and what is not.

What law enforcement is looking for "is a clear bright line between
what is legal and allowable and what is not," a spokesman for the
association told lawmakers.

That seems reasonable, and the Montana Legislature needs to deliver.