SHOCKLEY: REPEAL POT LAW, REPLACE IT

Sen. Jim Shockley said Monday he'd support and even sponsor a bill
aimed at overturning Montana's current medical marijuana laws and
then help initiate a ground-up rewrite.

The Victor Republican who worked in opposition to the 2004
legalization of medical marijuana said he's not against medical
marijuana, however.

"I'm a convert," he said. "There is no doubt marijuana has medical benefits."

But while medical marijuana works, he said, Montana's law authorizing
its use doesn't and is too flawed to simply fix.

"Really, basically, it is out of control," he said.

Shockley, speaking to the Hamilton Rotary Club Monday afternoon, said
he hopes the Legislature this year will overturn the current law,
grandfather current use for the time being, and then craft three
separate bills aimed at oversight of specific areas of medical
marijuana use - production, distribution and authorization.

Shockley said he would support narrowing the state's current 3,000
marijuana producers down to a much smaller number - perhaps 50 - and
then having the grown product sent to one of a handful of state
distribution centers. Those centers would then send the product to
city or county outlets in much the same way some states do with
liquor. He'd also support tightening the ways in which patients can
get medical marijuana authorization cards - no more pot for a
sprained ankle, he suggested - and streamline the patient
authorization card process by allowing individual doctors to simply
prescribe the product to their patients instead of having patients
take a doctor's authorization to the state for final approval.
Finally, he'd hope for a more comprehensive dosage analysis so
doctors and patients better understand how specific doses produce
specific results.

"Right now there is absolutely no control and that is how it was
designed," Shockley said. "It's a legal way for a lot of people to
get marijuana."

Not so fast, said Dr. Chris Christensen, a Victor family practice
doctor who said in four years he's issued 3,500 medical marijuana
certifications.

The current law is not flawed, he said - it's simply not being
enforced the way it was written.

"If physicians are not held to an ethical standard, what do you
expect?" he said.

The state's standards of care are not being followed, he said, and
there is no disciplinary oversight. Good rules are in place - doctors
must take a patient history, discuss advantages and disadvantages of
marijuana, and monitor the response to treatment - and replacing
those with new ones is not necessary, Christensen said.

"Most of the patients I see are over 35, but a handful are under 18,"
he said. "The numbers are clear - there are between 40 million and 70
million Americans living with chronic pain. You can not put this in
the hands of a small number of doctors."

Currently, there are about 24,000 medical marijuana cardholders in
Montana - and bet on that number to grow.

"I get referrals from doctors who won't write authorizations - and
from the Veterans Administration," Christensen said. "I saw 29
patients on Saturday."