MARIJUANA

Black Market Economics

Cannabis advocates are warning that the millions of dollars generated
by Montana's legal medical marijuana industry will flood the black
market if a law that aims to sap the businesses' profits is allowed
to take effect.

"It will fuel the drug war even more," says Montana Cannabis Industry
Association President Ed Docter. "It's going to mean more marijuana
coming over the borders. These people are not going to stop smoking
marijuana just because (the Montana Legislature) passed a law."

Republican Jeff Essman's Senate Bill 423 is slated to take effect
this Friday. It calls for banning marijuana advertising, limiting
marijuana providers to three patients each, and forbidding providers
from making a profit. The Montana Cannabis Industry Association and
eight other plaintiffs filed suit to stop the law. District Judge
James Reynolds is currently deliberating whether to temporarily halt
aspects of it.

Bracing for what could be a complete overhaul of the medical
marijuana industry, Docter finds himself crunching numbers. More than
30,000 individuals are registered with the state to legally use
medical marijuana. Each of those patients purchases, on average, 24
grams of cannabis a month at $10 a gram, Docter says. "That comes to
$7.2 million a month. That's amazing."

If profit is taken out of the legal medical marijuana equation,
caregivers and cannabis users may head underground, Docter says, and
that would hurt the people the industry currently employs. "I got
into this to create jobs," he says. "Now, I'm in it to save these jobs."

Missoula Police Chief Mark Muir doesn't buy it. Marijuana is just
like alcohol and tobacco--dangerous, he says. He believes it's better
to nip the cannabis boom in the bud now rather than letting the
for-profit industry groom a whole new crop of users via advertising
and flashy dispensary storefronts.

The medical marijuana law voters approved in 2004 only authorized
caregivers to provide services, not other pot shop employees. "Every
one of those employees was committing a felony," Muir says. "Those
weren't legal jobs."

The black market has always been there, Muir says. "And it will
probably exist afterward."