CRACKDOWN ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA IS COMING, BUTTE LEGISLATOR SAYS

BUTTE - State Rep. Jon Sesso, D-Butte, told the Montana Bar
Association Friday to expect the Legislature to clamp down on medical
marijuana.

Sesso, the House minority leader, who spoke to the lawyers' group in
Butte, said he anticipates significant reform, but not outright
repeal of the 2004 Medical Marijuana Act.

"The abusers will be on notice, probably in the next 30 days," said
Sesso. "If you aren't legitimately sick, you are not going to be able
to use (medical marijuana)."

He said legislators recognize that abuse of the law is overriding its
merits and that reform is necessary.

Numerous bills are working their way through the Senate and more
moving through the House. Sesso said he expects a bill combining some
of their elements will be enacted this session. Particulars about how
the final products will look, however, remain unknown.

"Today's report will be essentially obsolete tomorrow," Sesso said.
"24 hours means a lot in the legislative session and things are
moving as we speak."

Changes have already been enacted, such as House Bill 19, which put
medial marijuana under the Clean Air Act and forbid smoking in
enclosed public places.

But the Legislature is toying with a number of other ways to tinker
with the law. Some of the bills being debated include provisions for
making it illegal for felons to become caregivers, forbidding those
on probation from using medical marijuana, clarifying the conditions
that qualify for the drug, prohibiting physicians from having
financial ties to the marijuana industry and requiring product labeling.

Sesso said the problems with medical marijuana law snuck up on the
Legislature because at first the program was working as designed.

In 2009, five years after the referendum passed, 1,500 Montanans used
medical marijuana. Those patients suffered from cancer, glaucoma,
AIDS and other serious ailments. But in 2010, fueled by an
"explosion" of touring clinics and doctors that gave out thousands of
scripts, more than 4,000 patients were joining the rolls each month.

That is when Sesso said he realized there was a problem with the system.

He said he still wants legitimate users to have access to marijuana
if they wish. But he warned the thousands of patients that signed on
in the wave of 2010, many of whom cited vague health problems, should
prepare to do without legal access to marijuana.

The thousands of new caregivers, too, may find that the drug is not
going to be the moneymaking industry they may have imagined.
Caregivers may be limited to the number of customers they can have
and the federal government, which recently conducted raids on two of
the largest producers in the state, may have a say in that matter, too.

"The word is out that the federal government is not going to make
medical marijuana a low priority, but will enforce the law as it is
intended - as a Tier 1 drug subject to prosecution," he said.