VOTERS PASS MEDICAL MARIJUANA INITIATIVE

HELENA -- Use of marijuana for medical reasons will be legal in Montana and
tobacco users will see a tax increase, voters decided Tuesday in passing a
pair of ballot measures Tuesday.

Initiative 148 allows the cultivation, possession and use of marijuana, in
limited amounts, for medical purposes. The initiative shields patients,
their doctors and caregivers from arrest and prosecution.

Initiative 149 will increase tobacco taxes by $45 million a year,
allocating most of the money for new or existing health care programs.

Voters rejected a measure that would have lengthened the limits on
legislators' terms.

With 91 of 881 precincts reporting, the vote on the marijuana initiative
was 53,202 to 28,438, or 65 percent to 35 percent.

Passage was "just common sense," said Paul Befumo of Missoula, a leader in
the campaign for the measure.

"I'm really thankful to Montana," Befumo said. "I think we did something
good for ourselves, our neighbors and relatives who are sick." Fegumo said
his father's suffering from fatal lung cancer two years ago may have been
eased by the use of marijuana.

With 91 of 881 precincts reporting, the vote on the tobacco tax was 54,448
to 27,086, or 67 percent to 33 percent.

Early returns found voters rejecting Constitutional Amendment 42, the
measure to change legislators' term limits. With 91 of 881 precincts
reporting, the vote was 52,646 opposed to 27,018 in favor, or 66 percent to
34 percent.

The measure would have lengthened term limits from eight years in any
16-year period to 12 years in any 24-year period.

Voters approved Constitutional Amendment 40, placing in the constitution a
$10 million trust fund for combatting noxious weeds. Voters also passed a
constitutional amendment protecting residents' ability to hunt and fish.

The declared outcomes of the elections were based on a statistical analysis
of the vote from voter interviews conducted for The Associated Press by
Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.