THE BIG FIX

Lawmakers went to Helena to clean up the freewheeling medical
marijuana industry, which most agreed had grown too big, too fast,
with little oversight. Instead, the legislation they passed is so
convoluted it's unclear what, if anything, it fixes.

Some of the new rules took effect over the weekend. And the assumption
by the bill's sponsor, Sen. Jeff Essmann, R-Billings, is that they
would immediately repeal the Department of Public Health and Human
Services' authority to issue medical marijuana cards. But that
department disagrees.

Apparently, the law is so vague that the agency believes it still has
the responsibility to issue cards under the old, less restrictive
rules, until June 20. And health officials say they have a 60-day
backlog of applications to work through and will be adding people to
the list of about 30,000 Montanans who already use medical marijuana
(that's more than 3 percent of the state population).

Before the Legislature convened, an interim committee came up with
several major proposals to overhaul the Medical Marijuana Act, which
was overwhelmingly approved by the state's voters in 2004. Those
included requiring background checks for growers and sellers of
medical marijuana and making license holders provide quarterly
financial reports and submit to audits. For users, it would cap the
amount of medical marijuana they could purchase each month and two
physician certifications would be required to a get a card.

Those proposed new rules made sense. But Republicans in the House
didn't think so. They ignored the interim committee's recommendation
and sent Gov. Brian Schweitzer a bill that repealed the law
altogether. They knew the governor would veto it. And he did.

With time running out in the session, lawmakers then cobbled together
a plan that essentially turns the medical marijuana law into a
grow-your-own system that eliminates providers from making profits and
limits them to three patients each.

Schweitzer compared the proposal to communism and quipped, "There is a
guy who thought of that system first, his name is Karl Marx." Yet he
let the legislation, which he called "one of the worst-crafted bills
in this Legislature," become law without his signature. And now the
inevitable lawsuit has been filed.

State District Judge James Reynolds has already ordered the state to
not enforce rules in the legislation that ban medical marijuana
providers from advertising their products. A separate motion has been
filed to strike down the law altogether on constitutional grounds.

The brief reads, in part, "in a feeding frenzy that can appropriately
be dubbed its moment of ‘reefer madness,' the Montana
Legislature spent considerable time in repeated attempts to undo the
enactment of the people."

Lawmakers here may have become jittery after federal agents raided
dispensaries across the nation, including several in Montana. Those
providers have sued the government, claiming the raids violated their
rights under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.

I have argued previously -- while acknowledging that the Medical
Marijuana Act needed an overhaul -- local municipalities and the state
are disingenuous to attribute a crackdown to their fear of the federal
government. Keep in mind that our politicians have proposed
legislation that would selectively ignore other federal laws involving
health care, guns and law enforcement authority.

These new medical marijuana rules are arguably the most restrictive of
the 14 states that have legalized medical marijuana. Medical marijuana
advocates are now gathering signatures with hopes of overturning the
legislation and putting the issue on the 2012 ballot. Senate Bill 423
- -- for all intents and purposes -- was aimed at killing the industry.
But it's unclear if lawmakers even got that right.