POT REPEAL NOT THE WAY TO GO

The state House of Representatives voted last week to repeal Montana's
medical marijuana act, a first step in making the drug illegal once
again.

House Speaker Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, sponsored the repeal bill,
which he said is necessary because medical marijuana has become "an
uncontrollable epidemic." Others have argued that marijuana use and
cultivation have grown beyond what citizens imagined when they passed
the medical marijuana act, Initiative 148, in 2004.

That argument has been widely used by lawmakers in this session of the
Legislature, though none has quantified it with any tangible evidence
or statistics -- providing only anecdotal evidence based on the number
of current med-pot patients and caregivers.

Opponents of the repeal suggested that there are other ways to deal
with the burgeoning medical marijuana industry besides banning it
outright, and several other bills percolating through the Legislature
aim to regulate the industry.

The House committee's vote to repeal something voters enacted en masse
six years ago is a sticky wicket. Overturning the will of the people
on unsubstantiated claims that the people "didn't know what they were
getting into," is not the right approach.

The state's medical marijuana registry listed 28,362 patients and
4,843 caregivers as of January. Both numbers are steadily climbing,
but no member of the Legislature has been able to deliver any facts or
figures to prove that any of the registered users received green cards
without demonstrating medical need. Also, the number of caregivers has
grown because, potentially, there is money to be made in the industry.
What's wrong with that?

As we have argued in the past, the industry clearly needs some
regulation to prevent undeserving people from obtaining green cards
and to prevent abuse. The industry also needs to be taxed, and
questions about the way marijuana is grown and distributed need to be
answered.

But all of these issues can be solved with legislation. Repeal is
unnecessary. And there's a good chance the governor will veto a
repeal, which means the Legislature will have failed to properly
address this issue again -- for a fourth straight session.