NEW BILL PUTS MONTANA PSC IN CHARGE OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA SYSTEM

HELENA - A newly written medical marijuana bill introduced in the
Senate on Wednesday would make the Montana Public Service Commission,
the agency that regulates utilities and transportation, the new state
licensing authority for medical pot.

Senate Bill 423, by Sen. Jeff Essmann, R-Billings, was written by a
three-member subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee this week.
Others on the subcommittee were Sens. Chas Vincent, R-Libby, and Cliff
Larsen, D-Missoula.

The 49-page bill will be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee on
Friday.

Essmann's stated goal is to greatly reduce the number of people
eligible for medical marijuana use by making it harder for people
claiming severe and chronic pain to obtain cards. Following New
Mexico's model, Essmann is hoping the bill would lower the number of
eligible cardholders to less than 2,000 from the current level of more
than 28,700.

The bill also would ban storefront medical marijuana dispensaries and
any forms of advertising or promotions for the product. It also seeks
to squeeze any profits out of the system by requiring those growing
the marijuana to sell it on what amounts to a cost or nonprofit basis
only.

The surprise move Wednesday as the panel wrapped up the bill was the
amendment to put the PSC, a somewhat obscure agency, in charge of
regulating what would be called "therapeutic marijuana." The PSC is
composed of elected commissioners representing five districts statewide.

Essmann said the panel looked at the PSC when it settled on a courier
system to deliver medical pot to qualified patients living in
apartments, nursing homes and other places where they wouldn't be able
to grow their own marijuana.

Other people would have to grow their own limited medical marijuana
and could use a volunteer assistant.

The PSC not only regulates transportation but oversees utilities'
costs, "inputs" and rates of return, although the bill would not allow
profits.

"They've got that system largely in place," he said.

PSC Chairman Bill Gallagher, R-Helena, said the commission hasn't had
a chance to formally discuss the idea, but plans a work session to do
so Thursday. Its staff is examining what would be required if the PSC
took on the task.

"We regulate what the Legislature tells us," Gallagher said. "If it's
something they want us to do, we will do it."

Medical marijuana cards still would be issued by the Department of
Health and Environmental Sciences.

The bill was written as if the Legislature will repeal the current
voter-passed 2004 initiative that authorized the use of medical
marijuana, which is in some doubt at present.

Although House Bill 161, by Speaker Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, to repeal
the law later this year passed the House, it has stalled in the Senate
Judiciary Committee, which deadlocked 6-6 on it.

If the Senate is unable to blast out HB161 and pass it, Essmann said
he might ask the Senate Judiciary Committee to amend the Milburn's
repeal bill into SB423.

"We need a workable solution," he said. "We want to get it to the
House. This is an important issue to the parents, to the youth, of the
state."

He said he doubts that the backers of repeal can muster the 26 votes
in the 50-member Senate to blast HB161 out of committee.

Essmann said it would be cleaner to repeal the current law and put
into place the new oversight system laid out in HB473.

However, Milburn said he wants to repeal current law and isn't
convinced any type of regulations that can be put into place that would work.

"I'm a full repeal guy," he said. "I would go for the full repeal and
that's it."

Also on Wednesday, the House Human Services Committee tabled HB68, by
Rep. Diane Sands, D-Missoula. Her bill was introduced on behalf of an
interim committee that spent much of last year studying the medical
marijuana issue and working with law enforcement, local governments
and the medical marijuana industry.

The committee passed and sent to the House floor for debate HB175, by
Rep. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell, which would put a referendum on the
2012 ballot to let voters decided if they want to repeal or keep the
medical marijuana law.