Libby medical marijuana provider, lawmaker oppose proposed regulations
Medical marijuana providers and patients in Montana say proposed regulatory actions would place considerable cost and time burdens on them.
The Montana Standard reports the stakeholders voiced opposition to the set of proposed rules during a hearing Thursday, Nov. 30 at the state Department of Public Health and Human Services.
“These proposed rules, more specifically testing, has proven to be only semi-effective in other states that have adopted recreational cannabis laws,” Barb Turner, co-owner of Libby’s Alternative Relief, said via email Nov. 4. “These rules, and the structure proposed, mimic the rules of recreational cannabis states.”
Under the department rules, dispensaries would be required to test marijuana products for heavy metals, pesticides and other items. The rules would also set licensing fees at $1,000 for providers with 10 or fewer patients and $5,000 for providers with more than 10.
The rules were made public earlier this month and are in response to legislation passed earlier this year. The state law requires the department to implement rules on testing, licensing, tracking and limiting marijuana and its providers.
“Regulation, accountability, and testing to ensure a safe product that isn’t being diverted to the black market is absolutely necessary inside our medicinal cannabis community,” Turner wrote.. “The problem lies within the structure, and the costs associated with this proposed structure as you cannot hire third party. You must grow, process, and distribute all marijuana products yourself.”
Turner said that during Montana’s legislative session in April, she joined Rep. Steve Gunderson and The Patient Rights Network in Helena “to send the message to our legislative body that this type of horizontal legislation mixed with our mandatory vertical, stacked license system would negatively impact rural Montana patients and all small businesses.”
“Our legislative body failed to hear that message,” she wrote. “The stakeholders that supported this measure at the legislative level at that time are now in opposition of these proposed rules because of the restricted access it will cause patients in rural areas and the devastating impact it will have on small businesses.”
Turner said another significant concern is the licensing’s proposed structure of licensing.
“A small, rural provider with only 11 patients, would be paying the same licensing fee as a provider with over 1,000 patients,” she wrote.
Gunderson wrote in a Dec. 3 email that the issues surrounding medical marijuana in Montana are a result of Senate Bill 333, a piece of legislation passed in 2017 to revise the Montana Medical Marijuana Act of 2004.
“SB333 was too big, too fast, (and) not a Montana program,” he wrote. “(Iit) did not have the best interests of Montana’s most neediest patients in mind nor the ‘Mom and Pop’ small businesses that could support such a program.”
With Turner and the The Patient Rights Network, Gunderson crafted House Joint Resolution 36, a proposed 2017 bill that “would have allowed for a process that would have put a Legislative Interim Committee in control to oversight the process of building a well thought out, well planned quality program Montana could be proud of,” Gunderson wrote.
The bill did not pass. Had it, Turner said finding something that “would have would have worked best for all of Montana … could have happened.”
“Instead, we have a medicinal cannabis law, structured so tightly that it will take investors and a large amount of capital to stay in businesses,” she wrote. “This isn’t the Montana way.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.