GROWERS CALL MEDICAL MARIJUANA REFORM UNREALISTIC

With a bill advancing that would eliminate medical marijuana
caregivers as Montana has come to know them, business owners are
contemplating the future of the businesses they invested thousands of
dollars into.

They are also calling unrealistic the Legislature's proposed
alternative to for-profit growers - patients raising the plants
themselves or growers raising plants for up to three people, free of
charge.

The only bill dealing with Montana's controversial medical marijuana
industry still alive in the Legislature is Senate Bill 423 after Gov.
Brian Schweitzer vetoed another bill that would outright repeal
Montana's medical marijuana law.

Supporters of the plan say it would put stricter guidelines on the use
of medical marijuana - use at schools and hospitals would be banned
and the drug could be prescribed for fewer illnesses - while keeping
marijuana an option for the sickest people.

And it would eliminate the booming caregiver business by barring
anyone from getting paid for pot.

"I believe we have accomplished a great deal as to dealing with the
problem areas," Sen. Jeff Essmann, R-Billings, told the Associated
Press about the bill he sponsored.

But growers here said the bill will effectively end the use of medical
marijuana in the state, since it will require people to tend to a
plant that takes some effort to grow.

"It's ironic that they're telling sick people, 'You have to start
gardening to treat yourself,'" said Mike Nelson, owner of Greener
Pastures, a caregiver with storefronts in Bozeman, Four Corners and
Missoula. "What if a person fails? Not every single person wants to
have to grow their own medicine. It's the same reason we go to grocery
stores for tomatoes."

And it is unclear where patients will be able to get the plants to
grow, as the bill calls for all caregivers to destroy their plants by
July 1, when it goes into effect.

"You don't have to be too bright to look at it to see it is repeal
under the guise of regulation," said Blake Ogle, owner of A Kinder
Caregiver in Bozeman. "There are a lot of patients who got their card
who don't have the desire to grow, or the patience, or they are
physically too sick to do it.

"It's like growing any other agricultural commodity. You have to know
what you're doing."

As for the caregivers themselves, it is clear from the bill that they
would not be allowed to stay open.

And for the businesses interviewed for this story, that will mean big
losses on businesses that have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars
to start up.

"We'll take a beating if this thing is shut down," Ogle said. "I'll be
out on the street, living in a cardboard box."

Nelson estimated that Greener Pastures has spent $400,000 in capital
investments for its storefronts plus a growing area.

Also on Wednesday, Sen. Larry Jent, D-Bozeman, released an op-ed
co-written by Sen. Rowlie Hutton, R-Havre, in favor of the marijuana
bill. The piece claimed that marijuana is costing Montanans jobs,
since more applicants can't pass a drug test.

"The Army National Guard disclosed that they were terminating
employment at a rate three times the normal rate to do positive drug
testing for marijuana," the lawmakers wrote. "A local grain elevator
told one committee that at a recently held job fair, not one person
passed the drug test."

The senators also said "no peer reviewed scientific literature
supports the proposition that medical marijuana cures anything."

Mike Singer, co-owner of Sensible Alternatives just outside of
Belgrade, said he understands why policymakers are uneasy with the
medical marijuana industry as it now stands. But he said the drug does
help people.

"There are a lot of people who have exploited what the original intent
of the law is all about, which is too bad," he said, noting that his
business has tried to interpret the law as conservatively as possible.
"On the one hand, I completely understand folks wanting to take it all
away.

"But I do see there is a legitimate need for marijuana," he said. "It
would be a travesty to take that away from them."