Bill to dismantle Montana’s adult cannabis market catches fire

You’re still free to get high in the Big Sky. That’s because Montana lawmakers voted last week to introduce a bill that would have dismantled the state’s new cannabis program for adult cannabis use.

Republican Senator Keith Regier introduced Senate Bill 546 in Montana last month that would have eliminated recreational marijuana dispensaries in Montana.

Nearly 60 percent of Montana voters approved a November 2020 ballot initiative to legalize cannabis for adults 21 and older, creating a regulatory framework for a state-sanctioned recreational cannabis market.

Recreational cannabis sales started last year and ultimately netted the state more than $200 million in 2022.

The Montana Department of Treasury reported in January that sales of adult-use marijuana in 2022 totaled $202,947,328, while sales of medicinal cannabis totaled $93,616,551. (Montana voters legalized medicinal cannabis in 2004.)

But Regier’s bill never made it out of the Senate Committee on Business, Labor and Economics, which held a hearing on the measure on March 29.

“I just think it’s good not to make voters believe that their vote doesn’t count. Then they really turn away from this whole process,” said Kate Cholewa, who represents the trade group Montana Cannabis Industry Association, at last week’s hearing on the bill, as quoted by the Montana Free Press.

According to the outlet, Regier addressed this objection during his opening remarks at the hearing, saying that there have been “several instances of the voters’ will being reversed.” (“Two of the three examples he cited involved voter initiatives overturned by courts, not by the legislature,” Montana Free Press noted.)

Governor’s bill would also have “raised the state tax on medical marijuana from 4% to 20% and significantly restricted medical marijuana potency and allowable possession levels,” the Montana Free Press reported last month.

The issue of marijuana’s potency was raised at last week’s committee hearing.

“There’s no need to have 90% potency marijuana products unless you’re trying to get kids hooked.”

said dr Kevin Sabet, co-founder and president of the national anti-marijuana organization Safe Approaches to Marijuana, as quoted by Montana Free Press. “It’s just the only reason to do it. Or make people addicted at work and cause accidents on the street.”

But on Thursday, members of the Senate Committee on Business, Labor and Economics decided they had heard enough and voted 6-4 to pass the bill.

According to the Montana Free Press, “Three Republican committee members — Senate President Jason Ellsworth, committee chair Jason Small, and Sen. Walt Sales — joined with all three Democratic members to oppose the bill” before the “committee subsequently unanimously introduced the bill.”

It may not be the Montana Legislature’s last word on cannabis reform.

Last month, the same state Senate committee “heard testimony on two marijuana-related bills,” according to local news station KTVH, including one that “would ban Montana marijuana companies from publishing their business or brand in print.” TV and radio or with a billboard.”

The other proposal “would revise the required warning labels that marijuana companies must place on their products to say that use of marijuana during pregnancy leads to ‘congenital abnormalities and hereditary cancers that develop later in a child’s life.’ could,” reported KTVH.

Tax revenue from the sale of marijuana in Montana is used to support a number of programs in the state, including the HEART Fund, which provides money for substance abuse treatment in Montana.

“By funding a full continuum of community substance abuse prevention and treatment programs, the HEART Fund will bring new support to Montanans who want to get clean, sober and healthy,” said the state’s Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte in 2021 .