Act now to revamp pot law

It’s hard to predict what kind of reforms will come to pass for Montana’s medical marijuana law, but one thing is clear: The state Legislature must pass some significant changes before its business is done in Helena this year.

A bill to repeal the law altogether stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday on a 6-6 vote. Also on Monday, federal agents executed 26 search warrants at medical marijuana dispensaries across the state, including here in the Flathead, alleging the operations are involved in illegal marijuana trafficking.

We’ll see how those cases pan out, but law enforcement officials contend that the loosely defined law has been exploited for profit-driven criminal purposes, including exporting marijuana across state lines, in addition to spawning other criminal activity.

That’s because there are now 28,739 medical marijuana patients and 4,833 marijuana caregivers in the state. Many surely have legitimate medical purposes, but obviously many don’t.

Meanwhile, educators across the state have been reporting increased marijuana use among high school students. Just this week, Glacier High School Principal Callie Langhor sent an e-mail update regarding four drug-related suspensions.

“At GHS, there has been an increase in marijuana and prescription pill policy violations,” she wrote. “A vast majority of student marijuana violations are connected in some way to the misuse  of the medical marijuana law.”

These types of reports simply aren’t what Montanans were expecting when they passed an initiative on medical marijuana in 2004. They passed that initiative based on a campaign that gave an impression there would be limited, controlled use of medical marijuana by people with severe, if not fatal, medical problems.

That’s why the Legislature must take action. The repeal bill is not necessarily dead in committee, since it can be brought to the Senate floor for debate with just 26 votes. But it is also not necessarily the best solution.

Although we think you could make a case for repeal, especially as more and more shortcomings of the voter-passed law become evident, it is wiser for the Legislature to either amend the law or return it to the voters to decide for themselves if they still want to retain legal medical marijuana.

In any case, it is self-evident at this point that the Legislature must do something. A series of other bills remain alive in the House that are aimed at tightening the law in a fashion that would restrict who can get and provide medical marijuana, and would also provide more clarity for enforcing the law.

Legislators should face the problem head-on. One way or another, this is an issue that needs to be dealt with.