Judge blocks key medical marijuana reforms

A district court judge in Helena granted a preliminary injunction that blocks four key provisions in Montana's new medical marijuana law, which went into effect on July 1.

In issuing his 15-page ruling on June 30, Judge James Reynolds said he would not speak to whether marijuana has medical benefits because that matter had already been decided by Montana voters and the state legislature.

Reynolds did have something to say about the new law's restrictions on the commercial aspect of Montana's new marijuana industry.

"The court is unaware of and has not been shown where any person in any other licensed and lawful industry in Montana - be he a barber, an accountant, a lawyer or a doctor - who, providing a legal product or service, is denied the right to charge for that service or is limited in the number of people he or she can serve," he wrote in his decision.

Specifically, Reynolds blocked provisions in the new law that made it illegal for medical marijuana growers and providers to charge customers to recoup their business costs, to advertise and promote their products and to have more than three patients. He also blocked a provision that required an investigation anytime a doctor recommended medical marijuana to more than 25 patients in a year.

The legislature passed the reform law this year in response to increasing public criticism and an industry that grew from 4,000 patients in 2009 to nearly 30,000 this year and more than 4,800 growers and dispensaries across the state.

Columbia Falls was one of the few cities in Montana that did not ban commercial medical marijuana sales in its city limits. Kalispell and Whitefish enacted moratoriums on medical marijuana growers and commercial dispensaries, although several businesses in Kalispell were grandfathered in.

With the new law in effect starting July 1, medical marijuana users and providers will need to register with the state under provisions that include more stringent requirements for patients seeking doctor approval for use of medical marijuana.

The Montana Cannabis Industry Association brought the case to district court in Helena, asking that the legislature's reform law be found unconstitutional. The association said the new law interfered with a Montanan's constitutional right to pursue good health and interfered with the relationship between a patient and a doctor.

Meanwhile, the Montana Secretary of State's office on June 28 approved a petition sponsored by the Montana Cannabis Industry Association that seeks to suspend or overturn the legislature's reform law. The petition's backers will need signatures from 15 percent of registered voters in 51 of the state's 100 house districts, from 31,238 to 43,247 signatures altogether, by Sept. 30 to block the new law.

Montana voters approved medical use of marijuana in 2004 by an initiative that received 62 percent of the vote.