Kalispell OKs marijuana moratorium

The Kalispell City Council voted 8-1 on Tuesday to impose a 90-day moratorium on new medical marijuana businesses in the city.

The dissenting vote came from Bob Hafferman, who had said earlier in the discussion that, if given a choice by his doctor between manufactured drugs in pill form and medical marijuana, he would choose marijuana.

Noting that the 2004 Montana law allowing medical marijuana “did not sneak up on us,” Hafferman objected to calling it an emergency ordinance. But primariily he wanted language in the law specifying that no existing businesses would be shut down.

Mayor Tammy Fisher rebutted his proposed amendment that would have inserted the language. She said the ordinance itself would be unenforceable if it took away vested property rights, so the amendment was unnecessary.

The amendment failed 7-2.

Throughout the evening’s discussion, attended by some 30 people who appeared to be overwhelmingly in support of allowing medical marijuana and many of whom identified themselves as caregivers, the council seemed troubled by the state law’s vagueness.

For more on this story, read Thursday’s Daily Inter Lake.