MISSOULA ENTREPRENEUR SELLS MEDICAL MARIJUANA-INFUSED CAPLETS

Amid raids by the feds and wrangling in the Legislature, Roger Dowty
thinks he's found one solution to the sea of legal issues threatening
to swamp Montana's freewheeling medical marijuana culture.

Actually, not so much a solution as an infusion - of THC and other
cannabinoids into olive oil.

Dowty puts the mixture into caplets that can be swallowed without the
messiness and smell of smoking the stuff. His two children,
21-year-old Jared and 19-year-old Morgan, help with the hydroponic
grow operation that provides the raw material.

Dowty, a caregiver who also provides medical marijuana in traditional
bud form, is aggressively marketing his CanOliveCaps even as other
caregivers confess to severe jitters following Monday's federal raids
at medical pot shops in 13 communities around the state.

"I loved it," Dowty said of the warrants executed in search of
evidence of involved in large-scale marijuana trafficking and tax
evasion. Such actions, he said of the raids, will help cull illegally
run operations and underscore the legitimacy of others.

As the law stands now, caplets developed by a former counselor with no
background in chemistry or pharmacy are legit.

The voter-approved initiative that legalized medical marijuana in 2004
states includes "any mixture or preparation of marijuana" in its
definition of "usable marijuana."

Late Wednesday afternoon, the Senate Judiciary Committee looked at a
package of bills relating to medical marijuana, including one that
would repeal the present medical marijuana law. Another bill, from
Missoula Democratic Rep. Diane Sands, included any product "that
contains medical marijuana and is intended for medical use by means
other than smoking. The term includes but is not limited to edible
products, ointments, and tinctures."

Until the Legislature changes the rules, Department of Public Health
and Human Services spokesman Chuck Council said that agency won't
concern itself with how people consume their medical marijuana.

"Any sort of delivery mechanism, whether it be brownies or caplets or
oils, is really outside of our purview," he said. DPHHS maintains the
state registry of medical marijuana caregivers, and distributes "green
cards" to patients.

The matter of baked goods and the other forms medical marijuana can
take "is one of the great questions that was out there," said Missoula
County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg. "I think virtually everyone I
know in law enforcement decided they should just sort of wait and see
what the Legislature did before moving with regard to things like that
because it was too unclear."

One thing about which Van Valkenburg was clear, however - he never
threatened to prosecute Dowty in 2009 when Dowty contacted Van
Valkenburg and then-Missoula County Undersheriff Jerry Crego about his
grow operation. Dowty said Van Valkenburg's actions forced him to shut
down his Medical Cannabis of Montana business for several months.

"He was never prosecuted, never told that he would be prosecuted," Van
Valkenburg said Wednesday.

Dowty recounts that alleged threat on his website, where he also
writes, "The silver lining is that his action gave me time to perfect
our grow operation and I developed the caplet technology which has
been the goal all along."

Dowty said he developed the caplets because he doesn't like to smoke,
hates the taste of the baked goods, and thinks Marinol, the synthetic
form of marijuana, isn't as effective.

His caplets pack more of a painkilling wallop than either Marinol or a
joint, he said.

One 10 mg caplet - which he sells for $1 - is the equivalent of about
three joints, with an effect lasting up to nine hours, he said.

The dose can be adjusted upward to about 25 mg. "You can go for a
muscle relaxer effect to a full-body painkiller, he said, likening the
effect to that of Percocet.

On his website, he describes "a very strong narcotic effect, that may
leave you unable to walk, talk or see very well (blurred vision is a
common side effect thus far under stronger dosing)." He said he
recommends against driving or operating heavy machinery.

The caplets definitely will make people high, he said.

"But that high," he said, "is medicinal."