PROFITS, PRINCIPLES MIXED IN MEDICAL MARIJUANA DEBATE

The owner of a large medical marijuana business says two prominent
opponents of medical marijuana were willing to take his money when he
was getting started in the business.

Mark Higgins said Rep. James Knox, R-Billings, an outspoken supporter
of repealing the law that legalized medical marijuana, was a friend of
his who helped create a website domain for his business, Billings
Medical Marijuana.

About the same time, in the fall of 2009, Steve Zabawa, a prominent
member of Safe Community, Safe Kids, which launched a campaign to
support repeal, was willing to lease him space in a warehouse Zabawa
owned, Higgins said.

"I turned him down because he wanted a 10 percent share of my
business," Higgins said.

Neither Knox nor Zabawa denies having had business dealings with
Higgins, but both men said their initially benign views of medical
marijuana changed after the medical cannabis industry clearly got out
of hand in Montana.

Zabawa said it was true he proposed taking a portion of Higgins'
profits in addition to base rent, which he called a typical
arrangement when a property owner leases space to a retailer. He also
said Higgins, who was then expanding from a home operation, had little
money at the time.

Zabawa said Higgins "wasn't very attentive to details" and didn't
respond to Zabawa's offer, but "just disappeared" for a while. By the
time Higgins did make contact again, Zabawa said, he and his wife had
decided they wanted nothing to do with a marijuana business,
economically or morally.

Knox, for his part, said he had known Higgins even before they both
ran for the City Council in 2009, and he wasn't overly concerned about
the nature of his business when Higgins asked him to do some work for
him. Knox, who owns KBS Computer Solutions, created a domain name for
Higgins and charged him $600.

Of that, Knox said, he received less than $200. Rather than pursue the
issue, he said, "I gave it to him at cost as a friend."

Knox said that if he looked into the political and religious
background of every client, he'd never get any work done. Even so, he
said, after learning more about "the insincerity of the medical
marijuana providers," he decided not to do business with any of them.

Higgins released information about his dealings with Knox and Zabawa
earlier this week to Montanafesto, a blog that bills itself as being
devoted to nonpartisan Montana political commentary. The website,
which apparently is run by at least four anonymous bloggers, has been
very critical of both Knox and Safe Community, Safe Kids.

"I was just tired of all the lies going around," Higgins said, in
explaining why he released the information. "Enough is enough."

Besides having run for City Council, Higgins served on the medical
marijuana committee created by the council in 2009 to propose local
regulations for the medical marijuana industry.

After looking at Zabawa's property on Daniels Street, Higgins ended up
leasing a building at 116 N. 11th St. and opening his business last
April. It operates under the name Montannabis as well as Billings
Medical Marijuana.

Higgins said he is a caregiver for between 200 and 300 medical
marijuana patients and has about 300 plants growing in his
4,500-square-foot building, tended by four employees. He boasted that
Montannabis currently offers 70 different strains of medical
marijuana, more than any other provider in the state.

Higgins said he and Knox were good friends who went hunting together.
He said Knox admitted having smoked and sold marijuana when he lived
in California.

Knox said he has never tried to hide the fact that he experimented
with alcohol and a variety of drugs in his youth, but he said he
stopped using drugs when his daughter was born. He also said marijuana
ruined the life of his brother, who has used it steadily since he
started smoking pot in the fifth grade.

Asked if he, Knox, ever sold marijuana, Knox said, "No, not that I can
recall."

Knox was not happy when Higgins posted a private email on the
Montanafesto blog. He said the email had a liability disclaimer
attached to it, stating that the communication "may contained
privileged and/or confidential information."

After Knox saw the posting on Montanafesto, he sent Higgins another
email pointing out the liability disclaimer and adding, "My lawyer
will be contacting you to resolve this matter."

Zabawa said that when he was talking with Higgins about leasing his
warehouse in the fall of 2009, "that was the very beginning of my
learning process."

He said he, like many other Montanans, initially thought medical
marijuana was a reasonable option for people with severe medical
problems, like late-stage cancer or HIV-AIDS.

But the explosion of the industry has dramatically increased the
availability of marijuana, he said, making it far easier to obtain,
particularly among young people. Also influencing his views, he said,
was the death of his brother-in-law of lung cancer, after smoking pot
for 35 years, and his own child's abuse of marijuana. Zabawa said his
child is now off the drug, healthy and happy.

And though Zabawa favors repeal of the medical marijuana law, he said
he also supports decriminalizing the possession of less than an ounce
of marijuana by people with narrowly defined, serious medical conditions.

It would be illegal to grow and sell marijuana, Zabawa said, but not
to possess it for truly deserving people. How would they obtain their
marijuana?

"I would bet there would be some good people out there willing to meet
their needs," he said.