PANEL ASKS FOR TIGHTER RULES ON CANNABIS

A Senate panel on Monday requested a bill to be drafted to impose
strict regulations on medical marijuana to make it harder for people
to obtain cards to legally use it, eliminate the storefront
dispensaries and squeeze money out of the industry by requiring
growers to be nonprofits.

The subcommittee chairman, Sen. Jeff Essmann, R-Billings, said
afterward the proposed bill, if approved, would go into place if the
current law authorizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes is
repealed, as House Bill 161, by Speaker Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, would
do. HB161 passed the House, but deadlocked in the Senate Judiciary
Committee last week.

"The No. 1 goal is to reduce access and availability to the young
people of this state that are being sent an incorrect message that
this is an acceptable product for them to be using," Essmann said in a
later interview. "It's a controlled substance under federal law. It's
illegal under federal law. We know that (with) all addictive
substances, the earlier that you use alcohol or use marijuana, the
greater the addictive effect is on a developing brain.

Essmann said he wants to see medical marijuana storefronts and
advertising eliminated.

"We can't have storefronts legitimizing this one block from seventh-
and eighth-graders like I have inside my districts," he said. "The
storefront dispensaries have to be removed from our communities, and
the sooner the better.

Essmann said he believes the current medical marijuana law needs to be
repealed to make the subcommittee proposal work.

"I definitely feel repeal of the existing act is necessary and we just
have to figure out how to meld those two concepts together at this
point and how to make it work from a time standpoint," he said.

Reaction was mixed after the meeting.

"I think a workable regulatory framework is emerging from this," said
Jim Smith, who represents county attorneys and sheriffs. "I think we
could make this work under the sort of structure (Essmann) laid out
today."

Tom Daubert, a leading author of the voter-passed initiative, said,
"If a new bill passes that can work for legitimate patients, there's
no need for repeal."

Any bill draft would have to be approved by the subcommittee and then
the full Judiciary Committee before going to the Senate floor for
debate. The House also would have to concur.

Here are elements that the subcommittee asked to be drafted into a
bill:

- -- Include parts of an interim committee's bill requiring background
checks, fingerprinting and licensing for medical marijuana businesses.

- -- Add language from New Mexico to require a second physician with
experience in serious pain modulation to review any requests for
medical marijuana cards by people who say they have serious and
chronic pain.

- -- Require the Department of Public Health and Human Services to
report to the state Board of Medical Examiners when a physician has
recommended more than a certain number of people for medical marijuana
to make sure they are observing the board's standards of care. That
number has yet to be determined. A physician would have to have a
relationship with a patient for six months and at least four patient
visits over that period to recommend the patient use medical pot.

- -- Restrict the use of telemedicine to recommend that people obtain
medical marijuana cards.

- -- Use the New Mexico model to allow registered cardholders to grow a
set number of marijuana plants and seedlings with the help of a
volunteer assistant.

- -- Implement a system for cardholders who are in nursing homes, rental
property or other places where they can't grow medical marijuana. They
could be allowed to buy it from a nonprofit registered grower who
would ship the marijuana to them via a courier delivery system.

- -- Eliminate all marijuana storefront dispensaries.

- -- Prohibit all marketing and advertising for medical
marijuana.

- -- Ban the export and import of medical marijuana.

- -- Limit the cardholders to Montana residents only.

- -- Require a second physician to review any attempts to authorize
medical marijuana for minors.

- -- Remove the term "medical marijuana" and replace it with
"therapeutic marijuana."

- -- Put in a licensing system for derivative products made from
marijuana such as tinctures, oils, butters and other substances.

- -- Ban smoking of medical marijuana in public places.

- -- Authorize local governments to set zoning restrictions on medical
marijuana businesses.

- -- Repeal the affirmative defense that now can be used by "qualifying
patients" who are caught with marijuana but who don't have medical
marijuana cards, although they could be eligible for them.