SENATE PANEL STOPS CANNABIS REPEAL IN TIE VOTE

A Senate committee deadlocked Monday on a bill that would repeal
Montana's medical marijuana law, but backers said they intend to blast
the bill out of committee onto the Senate floor.

The Senate Judiciary Committee tied on a 6-6 motion to pass House Bill
161, by House Speaker Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, and send it to the
Senate floor for debate. The House had approved the repeal bill
earlier this session.

After the bill stalled, committee Chairman Terry Murphy, R-Cardwell,
named a three-member committee to come up with "a regulatory
alternative" to a repeal bill.

Montanans voted by 62 percent to 32 percent in 2004 to legalize the
use of marijuana for certain medical purposes.

Milburn, who watched the committee action, said he was disappointed
but not surprised.

"It's kind of what we expected, but it's not over," he said. "We'll
see what we can do on the full Senate floor. I hope I have the votes.
It's looking positive."

Named to the committee were Senate Majority Leader Jeff Essmann,
R-Billings, as chairman, and Sens. Cliff Larsen, D-Missoula, and Chas
Vincent, R-Libby.

Five Republicans joined by Democratic Sen. Larry Jent of Bozeman,
voted in favor of HB 161.

Four Democratic senators, joined by Republican Sens. Chas Vincent of
Libby and Murphy, voted against the bill.

During the committee's discussion, Jent said, "We really bungled this.
Our citizens passed an initiative, but we let this get out of hand."

"This law has been an embarrassment for this state," Jent added. "It's
an utter embarrassment. It's time for this to go."

Essmann agreed, but he put the blame on the Schweitzer administration.
He said the administration had failed to act as the medical marijuana
industry spun out of control here, unlike officials in New Mexico,
whose administration tightened restrictions on its medical pot law.

"It's not the Legislature that has punted," he said. "It's the
executive branch that has punted. They had the authority to stop this
mess from happening, and they failed to do it."

Senate President Jim Peterson, R-Buffalo, called the committee action
one of the most important votes of the session.

"What really appalls me is that the old State Nursery here in town is
used to grow medical marijuana," he said.

"The money is taking over the process. We need to say enough is enough
and if we need to start over, we need to start over."

The committee discussion took place around the same time that the
former State Nursery and some other medical marijuana growing
businesses were raided by law-enforcement officials Monday.

Sen. Jim Shockley, R-Victor, said Montana voters were
deceived.

"It was sold to the public as an older person dying of cancer being
allowed some relief, and it ended up with a 22-year-old smoking on the
corner," he said. "That's not what people voted for."

However, some other senators argued against repeal.

"I believe repeal is about defying the will of Montana voters," said
Sen. Anders Blewett, D-Great Falls. "It's about taking medications
away from seriously ill patients."

Vincent said Montana has "a huge mess on our hands," with plenty of
residents angry that what they voted on in 2004 turned out to be much
different than what they thought.

He said he talked to a 23-year-old woman with epilepsy who had to take
powerful prescription drugs that prevented her from being "a normal
functioning person." Now, she is able to live a normal life by making
butter with a marijuana tincture that she puts on her bread and
pancakes in the morning and has no side effects, Vincent said.

Vincent said he couldn't look her in the face and tell her she had to
go back to what she had done before. Instead, he said the committee
can fix the law and impose some strict regulations.

Sen. Shannon Augare, D-Browning, said the Legislature deserves the
blame for failing to do anything about medical marijuana in 2007 and
2009, when there were slightly more total Republicans than Democrats.

He called for "taking the very best ideas and creating one bill, a
very strong regulatory bill."

In opposing repeal, Murphy said, "I know some people who are getting
some real relief from chronic conditions from it that they weren't
getting from the most expensive medicines on the market."

Afterward, Tom Daubert, who helped write the medical marijuana
initiative and is a leading spokesman for the industry, voiced
disappointment that the repeal bill wasn't tabled.

"This issue is far from over," he said.

Daubert said he remains "terrified" for medical marijuana patients
whose comfort remains at risk "because the effort to repeal is far
from over."