Back in 2004, Montana voters were given a choice by Citizens Initiative I-148 to legalize the use of medical marijuana by those suffering from the side effects of chemotherapy, glaucoma, and chronic pain. This was the same election that George Bush defeated John Kerry in his bid for a second term as President. The citizens' initiative was co-written by and heavily supported by pro-legalization out-of-state interests and those who wish to legalize marijuana use for all citizens of our state.

The voters of Montana chose by a margin of 62% to 38% in favor of the law. At the time, the language and the intent of the law seemed prudent to Montana voters. There were some with fears about the road that Montana was about to embark upon, but over the next five years, those fears seemed to be unfounded. For the most part, the law worked as intended, and marijuana production and usage was for the most part supporting those that needed the medication.

But in 2009, things began to change. According to State Rep. Jon Sesso, D-Butte as quoted in the Billings Gazette, there were 1,500 people who had medical marijuana cards in mid-2009. Now, less than two years later, there are around 30,000 cards issued. The number of persons claiming to need medical marijuana has jumped twenty-fold in twenty months. That averages out to around 1,500 new cards being issued every month. And the number of growers have been expanding at a rapid rate as well. One could perhaps conclude that suddenly there is a huge increase in serious disease requiring medical marijuana, but that just doesn’t seem to be the case. How is it that every month, there are the same number of new users as during the entire first 5 years of the program? Could there be another reason for the sudden surge and issuance of medical marijuana cards?

According to KPAX TV in Missoula, there are more medical marijuana users in our state now than there are residents of Helena. Upwards of 30% of card-holders are under the age of 30. This is the fastest growing group of users. And coincidentally, the largest numbers of users are in Missoula and Gallatin counties, 4,500 and 3,500 respectively, where the University of Montana and Montana State University are located. Could it be that our universities are inducing serious terminal diseases on the college students of our state? If usage is assumed to be legitimate, then we have a serious health crisis on our college campuses.

Recently, federal agents issued 30 search warrants in 13 Montana cities related to medical marijuana. While it appears that many citizens were unaware that under federal law, marijuana possession is still illegal, growers and users are under no such illusion. The exact charges and specific crimes have not yet been disclosed by the federal government and no arrests have been made, but incriminating facts were disclosed. The raids were the culmination of 18 months of investigation by several federal agencies, and their probable cause extended far beyond what the intent of Montana’s medical marijuana law’s original intent encompassed. Several other states have similar medical marijuana exceptions, yet no raids have occurred in those states.

During the raids, $3.6 million in cash from associated bank accounts was seized. That’s about $125 per medical card holder, or $2500 per 2009 card holder. That’s a lot of profit, and the raids only included a fraction of the grow and distribute operations in the state. How did medical marijuana for 1500 patients turn into a multi-million dollar industry in such a short time?

The original law, while well intentioned, has many loopholes, vague language, no penalties for fraud, and no checks and balances.

Touring clinics from out of state come through and patients can obtain a ‘doctor's signature’ for a nominal fee. Signed forms are mailed to Helena and cards are issued. Anybody can get a card, and nobody is denied.

Caregivers and growers recruit and solicit patients. The business has become a big money maker for those involved. Doctors, growers, providers, and perhaps even users. Technically it is not illegal to grow and supply marijuana for anybody with a card, and anybody with a card cannot be held responsible for the decision by their ‘doctor’ to sign the form. Out-of-state doctors cannot be prosecuted for giving their medical opinion. So technically, nobody is breaking the law, just the spirit of the law. Other states have specific well written laws regarding medical marijuana and aren’t seeing the same problems or the huge spike in usage that Montana is experiencing.

Here in Montana for instance, one can say that they get headaches, the doctor can say it might be a tumor, will sign the form, and there’s another patient for a provider. And while medical marijuana is supposed to be used to treat chronic and acute pain, prescriptions are now issued if the patient has migraine headaches, gout, insomnia, frequent headaches, joint pain, or any malady that a patient describes as being intolerable.

Convicted felons can currently be caregivers, and the felon population, like the college student population, has an unusually high number of card carriers. It seems unlikely that our prisons are causing a lot of terminal illnesses. No statistics exist for a felon or college student correlation to being a provider, but one has to wonder if that number would be suspect as well.

While there was no problem during the last two legislative sessions in 2007 and 2009, the medical marijuana problem is now seen as a big problem for the state and getting worse every month. So the current legislature which is now in session has been debating the issue. The two choices are to tighten down the current law and repeal the law. Recently the Montana House voted to repeal I-148, but repeal may be much harder to pass in the Senate. And it does not seem likely that our governor would sign a repeal bill since he’s been in support of the medical marijuana issue in the past.

So the other option is a series of bills to reign in the abuses of the system and put checks and balances in place. Currently, card holders must renew their cards every year, and several ideas are being considered to weed out the abuse. One idea is to require two doctors' signatures, and those doctors must reside in Montana. That would stop the traveling touring clinics from visiting our state and in-state doctors could be held accountable for issuing cards for vague and unsubstantiated medical reasons. Another would forbid convicted felons from being involved as caregivers/growers.

A recent Mason-Dixon poll commissioned by the Billings Gazette, Montana Standard, The Missoulian, and Helena Record shows a vastly different public opinion than that of the populous which passed the original 2004 bill. 53% of Montanans feel that the law worked out worse than they expected, while just 3% think it worked out better than they expected.

And in the poll, the majority of Montanans would like to see the medical marijuana law repealed; 52%-38%. However, if the choice is medical marijuana law reform, the numbers are 83%-17% in favor of reform. So in either scenario, it is clear that the citizens of Montana want some sort of action to fix this growing problem rather than doing nothing. Hopefully, the legislature can craft a well thought out solution and the governor will not veto attempts to fix the law. The legislature will adjourn until 2013 in mid-April.

Mike Comstock is an MSU graduate; software engineer by day, math tutor in the evenings, musician on the weekends, and freelance writer in his spare time.