A new law passed by the state legislature in May 2019 will allow medical marijuana patients to purchase from any dispensary in the state, ending the frustrating practice of “tethering” each patient to a single dispensary. Patients now will be able to purchase up to five ounces of cannabis per month.
Meanwhile, voters may consider one—and possibly two—statewide adult-use legalization initiatives in November 2020.
So what are hundreds of dispensary owners and legalization activists are doing this spring? Getting ready for a whirlwind of change.
Montana’s medical marijuana program has been bedeviled with setbacks and resets since it was first passed into law in 2004.
After an initial explosion of dispensaries and years of what state officials characterized as “minimal oversight,” federal authorities began raiding Montana’s dispensaries. Then in 2011 the state Legislature approved a measure that limited dispensaries to serving no more than three total patients.
Implementation of that law was delayed by years of court challenges. But it finally took effect in 2016 and effectively booted 93% of Montana’s medical cannabis patients off the state program and into the illicit market.
Later that year, voters approved a new statewide measure repealed the three-patient rule. It’s taken nearly three years for the program to return its patient base to its pre-2011 levels. Today, about 40,000 patients are registered to use medical cannabis in Montana.
Legal compliance continues to be a major sticking point, though, and the state’s inability to enforce its own laws has become a source of frustration and embarrassment. Earlier this year the state’s Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS), which oversees the medical marijuana program, discovered that Lionheart Wellness, the state’s largest provider, had never been in full compliance with state rules.
“We needed more inspectors on the ground,” said state Sen. Tom Jacobson (D-Great Falls), who has been a leading voice on cannabis issues in the state capital of Helena.
Tethering has long prevented the medical cannabis market from flourishing in Montana. “If you’re on the road all the time and your provider is in Missoula, you have no choice but to shop the black market, or stock up and plan adequately,” said Emmie Purcell, co-owner of Greenhouse Farmacy, a dispensary with two locations in Missoula that serve roughly 1,000 patients. “It’s crazy.”
When untethering goes into effect—the date is currently undetermined, but by law it must be implemented before July 1, 2020—it may prove to be a sink-or-swim moment for many cannabis companies.
Adding to a feeling that substantial change is coming to Montana, two advocacy groups, MontanaCan and Coalition 406, are attempting to get adult-use cannabis initiatives on the ballot next year. MontanaCan presented its proposal, the Marijuana Regulation Act (Ballot Issue 5), to the Montana Secretary of State’s office last month for legal review. If it gets the okay, the next step will be collecting the 25,000 signatures needed to put it on the 2020 ballot. Coalition 406 is still developing the details in its proposal.
“I definitely think it’s feasible,” Jacobson said of full legalization in Montana. “It’s good to go to the people [for a vote] on a controversial issue like marijuana.”
No matter how the fight for recreational cannabis plays out in Montana, however, the success of Senate Bill 265 is a reminder that it’s not enough to merely pass medical marijuana or an adult-use bill and call it a day. You need to do it the right way.
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