LEGAL ISSUES SURROUND STATE'S MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW

MISSOULA - Now that using marijuana as medicine is legal under state
law, legitimate patients don't have to fear arrest on state charges
anymore. But there's one catch - buying pot is still illegal in Montana.

And that's just one of the gray areas surrounding Montana's new
medical marijuana law.

The Montana Medical Marijuana Act, approved by 63 percent of voters in
November, allows patients to use marijuana to relieve suffering caused
by such diseases as cancer, glaucoma and HIV, or by chronic pain.

Many unanswered questions surround the law as it takes effect today,
and patients and law enforcement officers are waiting to see what happens.

Montana and the 10 other states that have legalized medical marijuana
since 1996 are waiting to see whether the U.S. Supreme Court decides
state medical marijuana laws trump federal laws prohibiting the drug
in the ongoing Ashcroft v. Raich case.

Montana will allow patients or their caregivers to possess up to an
ounce of marijuana or up to six marijuana plants.

But in order to be protected under the law, residents must first
obtain a written recommendation from an oncologist or other medical
doctor saying they have a debilitating medical condition and would
benefit from using marijuana. Then they have to pay $200 to register
with the state.

Roy Kemp, who's in charge of creating the registry as the licensing
bureau chief for the Montana Department of Health and Human Services,
said the fee is necessary to cover the expense of putting the new law
into effect.

So far, his office has received 72 applications.

People who successfully register with the state will get a card they
must carry to avoid being arrested for marijuana possession.

The registration process is cut and dried; it's afterward that things
aren't so clear.

The law doesn't provide a legal way for patients or caregivers to
actually buy marijuana or the seeds to grow plants.

It doesn't specify where they're allowed to smoke marijuana, and it
doesn't address issues surrounding use, such as drug screening for job
applicants.

Sgt. Scott Brodie of the Missoula Police Department's High Intensity
Drug Trafficking Area task force said officers will still arrest
people they catch buying marijuana whether or not they have a card.

Brodie said officers are unsure whether they should arrest people for
possession and allow them to use registration cards as a defense in
court, or verify the cards on-site and not issue a citation in the
first place.

It will probably take a couple of years for lawmakers and law
enforcement to work out all the kinks that will come with the new law,
Brodie said.

Krissy Oechslin, a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based
Marijuana Policy Project, said she thinks states will take a closer
look at the supply issue after the Supreme Court makes its decision.

The Marijuana Policy Project financed Montana's Medical Marijuana Act
campaign and tries to help states develop policies to make medical
marijuana safer to use and more socially acceptable.

Oechslin said the lack of legal medical marijuana supplies has always
been a problem for patients in states that allow its use, and is
hurtful to patients who can't grow their own because of the crippling
effects of disease.

"As a healthy person, I can't keep houseplants alive, let alone a
marijuana plant, which I hear is much more finicky," she said.