STAKES HIGH IF LAWMAKERS FAIL TO ACT ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Montana lawmakers are on the brink of kicking the medical marijuana
can down the road for yet another two years. And that would be an
egregious disservice to their constituents.

State senators earlier this week quibbled over a financial estimate
for implementing a proposed medical-marijuana regulation bill until
they passed a procedural deadline for the measure. Now senators are
trying to send a badly butchered version of the bill to the House,
along with a competing measure to repeal the medical marijuana
initiative altogether.

Any effort to pass a regulation bill in the House faces tough
sledding, given that some lawmakers have made it known they will vote
for nothing short of repeal of the state's 7-year-old, voter-approved
medical-marijuana law - a move Gov. Brian Schweitzer is hinting he
might veto.

The stakes are high. If lawmakers fail at this task, we could be
looking at an even wider spread abuse of the law over the next couple
of years.

Some estimates indicated Senate Bill 423 would have cut the number of
Montana medical marijuana users from an estimated 28,000 today to some
2,000. Some Democrats argued the bill was too restrictive and would
have blocked access to the drug for some legitimate users. Some
legislators say they favor putting the repeal of the 2004 initiative
to the voters yet again. In the same breath, they predict voters will
reject repeal, leaving the industry to flourish unregulated yet again.

Voters approved the medical-marijuana law by a two-to-one margin and
let it be known loud and clear that they favored allowing its use in
legitimate cases. But the necessarily abbreviated nature of ballot
initiatives could not include any details on how the drugs production
and distribution would be regulated.

That job fell to lawmakers who are now on the verge of failing to act
for the fourth regular session of Legislature.

The impasse is indicative of just how divisive and dysfunctional state
government has become. A little give on the part of both sides of the
issue could still produce some passable legislation that certainly
would be better than nothing.

Let's see something in Helena we haven't seen much of for awhile:
statesmanship.