Court ruling vexes pot providers, patients
<p><strong>DR. MARK IBSEN</strong> travels from his practice in Helena to Kalispell once a month to meet with people seeking medical marijuana cards. He said he writes recommendations for roughly 600 people a year. Thomas Terrell, left, suffered a traumatic brain injury with seizures after he was attacked by a dog when he was 3 years old. His father, Tim Terrell, center, said they’ve had trouble finding a doctor to recommend medical marijuana to reduce his son’s seizures. (Katheryn Houghton/Daily Inter Lake)</p>
Since the Montana Supreme Court ruled Feb. 25 that medical marijuana providers are limited to three clients, those providers are juggling how to stay open while serving just 10 percent of the state’s marijuana cardholders.
Mike Eaker, owner of The GreenHaus in Kalispell, said he has to drop roughly 50 clients.
“It’s beyond businesses getting hit hard,” Eaker said. “It’s the patients. I can get creative and pick my three biggest spenders and maybe — maybe — stay open. Or do I pick my three sickest patients?”
As of January, there were 13,640 medical marijuana users registered in Montana.
The court ruling that reinstated provisions of a state law is expected to take effect sometime this month. Once it does, Montana’s 471 providers will be cut off at 1,413 patients.
Matt Sund is one of Flathead County’s 1,567 residents approved to take the drug. When Sund picked up his medication on Wednesday, he learned his provider could close shop at the end of the month.
Sund, 41, had a cervical decompression that led doctors to drill out part of his spine. He said that resulted in consistent migraines and back pains. Doctors prescribed him oxycodone, a prescription painkiller.
“I told them I couldn’t do the refill, I have an addictive personality and I wanted to be there for my four kids,” Sund said. “They prescribed me marijuana and it felt like I got to be part of life again.”
Without a marijuana provider, Sund said he can either register with the state to grow his own cannabis or return to pain pills.
“I can’t make marijuana around my kids,” he said. “I love my kids enough not to resort to either option, but I physically can’t pick up my 3-year-old if I haven’t smoked.”
The high court upheld nearly all the provisions of a 2011 state law that rolled back much of the 2004 voter-approved initiative that legalized medical marijuana.
The Legislature took action after a marijuana boom raised the number of registered users to more than 30,000 people. The Legislature determined that limiting the number of people a provider could serve would keep marijuana away from large-scale manufacturing, according to the high court’s majority opinion written by Justice Beth Baker.
Casey Palmer, owner of Natural Solutions in Kalispell, said the decision felt like the state was going back on its word.
“I built this business by the book and now it’s in jeopardy,” Palmer said. “Montanans voted for this, my patients went through the legal checkpoints to get this prescription and they each paid the state hundreds to do it.”
Dropping from 45 patients to three, Palmer said he might be able to stay open for a year or two while he hopes the decision is reversed.
But he said he didn’t know where his clients would go.
On Thursday, more than 20 people waited in line at Kalispell’s Alternative Wellness to see Dr. Mark Ibsen, a Helena private practitioner who has visited Kalispell once a month for years to write medical marijuana prescriptions.
One woman in line had survived a car accident and wanted her headaches to go away. Another wanted to find a way to eat as she went through chemotherapy treatments.
A third wanted to ease the seizures he had since childhood.
“It’s very rare to find a doctor who will do a marijuana prescription because most doctors are employees,” Ibsen said. “It’s basically fear, that those organizations don’t want their doctors writing marijuana recommendations because they might lose federal funding.”
He said that fear has grown since the Montana justices upheld provisions of the law that created an automatic review for doctors who recommend the drug for more than 25 patients.
Ibsen said that last year he wrote 600 marijuana recommendations. In the last four years, he said he wrote more than 2,000.
“I’m hoping I get to the 25-card limit right away and go talk to the medical board,” he said. “I’ll be happy to talk to them to justify why I’m recommending so many.”
He was scheduled to see 40 patients in Kalispell over two days. Some appointments took less than five minutes while others took 15.
Ibsen is currently under review by the state medical board for over-prescribing opiates to patients. He said he took the patients in question after other doctors refused to provide them with painkillers. He said he began to wean those patients off opiates and onto medical marijuana instead. By the time of his case’s hearing, seven of the nine patients were off of opiates, he said.
“I have patients who go from using 24 medications to three,” he said. “These are not tie-dyed losers sitting on couches getting high. These are people trying to function.”
The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services wrote in a statement that officials are currently working on how and when to reach out to physicians, providers and patients about the implications of the court decision.
“For now, both the Legislature and the Montana Supreme Court have spoken,” according to the statement.
Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.