Local officials weigh in on medical marijuana reform

With the state Legislature going back and forth on medical marijuana reform this week, local officials said what will come out of the action is unclear, but something needs to be done.

"What we currently have doesn't work and isn't working, and we need some control," Hill County Commission Chair Mike Wendland said this morning.

Havre Mayor Tim Solomon went a step further.

"It would be nice to see the complete repeal done and start over," he said this morning.

Montana voters approved allowing limited use of marijuana for medical purposes in a ballot initiative in 2004. In 2009, the number of people applying for — and being approved as — medical marijuana patients or caregivers has exploded, creating a scrambling effort by Montana's local and state lawmakers to find ways to improve the law.

The House of Representatives killed a proposal that had been worked out over the summer and fall to reform the state laws, instead passing a proposal to completely repeal the law.

The Senate today is considering voting on that repeal, which failed to pass from committee 6-6, but was approved Wednesday for a reading on the floor today in a 26-24 vote.

Sen. Rowlie Hutton, R-Havre, voted in favor of bringing the repeal to the floor, while Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, voted against it.

The Senate, in nearly day-long debates on the issue Wednesday, narrowly failed in two votes to approve a Senate committee-crafted bill that would revise the law rather than repeal it.

Solomon said, at this point, he would like to see the medical marijuana laws repealed and the state start over with a clean slate.

"Normally, I would be against repealing a law that was voted on by the people, but I think this was very misleading on what it would do," Solomon said.

In a months-long process, with some council members saying they would like to see medical marijuana banned in Havre and others saying it just needs to be better regulated, the Havre City Council finally approved a moratorium on new medical marijuana businesses.

While the existing businesses were grandfathered in to continue their legal operations, no new medical marijuana businesses would be allowed.

"That was to see what this Legislature would do with it," Solomon said.

The county enacted similar rules prohibiting new businesses but grandfathering in existing medical marijuana businesses. Wendland said what the county would do if the Legislature fails to pass any reform has not been discussed.

"We haven't planned that far ahead," he said.

Solomon said that it has been hard to follow all of the actions on some of the bills being proposed to reform the existing law, with continual amendments to the bills.

He said what he has seen for reforming the existing law does not seem to correct all of the problems the state is experiencing.

He said the people of Montana expected the law to allow use of marijuana to a very select, narrow group of people. The state should craft a new set of legislation to do that, Solomon said.

"I think it needs to be repealed and corrected back to what was sold to the people," he said.