(September 18, 2012 – Missoula) Following the Montana Supreme Court’s September 11 ruling overturning an injunction on parts of the current medical marijuana law, DPHHS is ordering a majority of the state’s providers to decide which patients they will cancel. The directive is intended to bring the providers into conformity with the current requirements of the state’s medical marijuana law without the injunction in effect. Today, DPHHS is mailing letters to 267 providers, leaving approximately 5,400 patients without a medical marijuana provider – roughly equivalent to the population of Lewistown, MT.
“I spoke with my provider last week. He says I’m on my own now, and he doesn’t know anyone sticking with the program,” says Doug Shaw, a 61 year old patient in Libby, MT. “Where I am I supposed to go for medical marijuana? Maybe the legislature will provide it to me,” he quips. Mr. Shaw suffers from herniated discs, sciatic nerve damage, thyroid problems and pleural plaque from asbestos exposure. After experimenting with prescribed narcotics, he says medical marijuana was the only thing that provided him with relief without side effects.
Senate Bill 432 limits providers to 3 patients and prohibits all forms of compensation for those providing medical marijuana to patients. These and other provisions of the law were temporarily blocked following a lawsuit filed by the Montana Cannabis Industry Association in June of 2011 shortly before the law went into effect. The ruling last week removes these limits on the new law.
“The legislature is finally getting what it wanted – the destruction of the voter-approved program originally put in place in 2004. The legislature set out to deny access to as many patients as possible, regardless of how needy they are or the opinion of their physician.” says Chris Lindsey, President of the Montana Cannabis Industry Association. The day following the Supreme Court ruling, Larry Jent , State Senator representing District 32 (Gallatin County) and one of the only Democrats who supported SB423, stated “This was meant to be a de facto repeal, and it worked. That’s why we did it that way.”
Following the implementation of the current law in June 2011, the number of medical marijuana patients in the state plummeted. At its highest point in June of last year, there were 30,036 patients registered with the state. Following implementation of the law, the number of patients steadily fell until it reached its lowest point in June of this year, settling at 8,844. In the months that followed, the numbers began to slowly increase until the ruling last week.
“It’s hard to say how many patients will have to leave the program, but clearly the vast majority is out of luck. There aren’t enough providers to go around, and for the truly sick – the ones legislature claims it supposedly tried to protect – growing their own marijuana is not a realistic option,” said Lindsey.
In November, voters will have the ability to repeal the current medical marijuana law entirely. Last summer, a group called Patients for Reform, Not Repeal secured enough signatures to put the current medical marijuana law before the voters, who can either vote “for” or “against” the law. “With the recent Supreme Court ruling, voters can finally see what the legislature intended. It is more important than ever that the voters regain control of their own program by voting against SB423 on November 6,” Lindsey said.
In the mean time, thousands of current patients are on their own without any legal way to obtain medical marijuana unless they grow it themselves, which is unrealistic for most patients. “I am too sick to grow marijuana and I have absolutely no idea how to grow it anyway,” says Diana, a patient in Yellowstone County who asked not to be identified. She is diabetic and a cancer survivor. “I’ve been through three providers since the new law went into effect, and this is the final straw – I have absolutely no idea where to go. I’ve been a patient since 2010, and now I have no options left. It makes no difference what my doctor thinks or what I think. All that matters is what some politician thinks.”
Larry Jent is an A**hole who does not even return calls to his constituents. I don’t live in his district but I will be volunteering money and time to his opponent.
I’m hoping we can get a list of the legislators who participated in this sham. History will not be kind to these people. We need to know who to support in upcoming election cycles, and who to send back to the dark shadows they crawled out of. Would someone please tell me how this in any way will help the citizens in this state? Will it keep the dreadful weed off the streets? no, it just pushes all the activity into the black market. Will this keep anyone more safe. Absolutely not. It only empowers the drug dealers who are not beholding to anyone. This will cost our communities more money to curtail these activities, at the same time there are lost jobs, lost tax revenues, lost monies to support industries as well. At the peak enrollment time over 30,ooo patients. This probably represents about ten percent of actual mj users in this state. The prohibition on weed has been outed for the failed policy that it is. I doubt if any one politician in this state would hold up under the scrutiny of these people when comes time for reelection. Lets point out the politicians who would do harm to the most vulnerable citizens of our state. It’s time to send the party of no back to nowhere.
we now a few ,essman,shockly,hinkle(sanders county we are doing are best to keep him out of commissioner and politics,his friends don’t even agree with the jerk
From my personal experience as a provider, less than 10% of my patients vote. I’ve only had 2 patients in the past 3 years that actually placed phone calls to our reps. I feel bad for the patients that will have no other choice than the black market, but freedom is not free. I thought when people started to lose their homes, new cars, big screen tvs that they would wake up and begin to care, but nothing. What a shame!
Freedom is the blackmarket, you just have to be willing to participate.
How sad. Politicians can spend big bucks on negative campaign ads and yet they want to deny critically ill people access to medication that is more cost effective than prescription drugs.
I agree with Tom from the Flathead Valley.
The petition gathering for IR 124 was a text book example of how freedom is lost due to the complacency of the majority much more than freedom is lost due to the tyranny of a minority.
No freedom, including medical-freedom is ‘free’. I was naive when I started gathering signatures for IR 124. I believed that MMJ patients would sign this petition and send about three up to five people they knew (friends and family) to a signature gatherer or to their caregiver (provider) to sign on their behalf. It just seemed natural to me that with over 27,000 patients in the state, that each patient would sign and get at a minimum, three or four other people to sign, and that 100,000 signatures would be gathered during the 3 month time limit to gather.
About a quarter of the way through the signature effort, I realized patient participation was weak. I was really stunned when some of the current patients refused to sign the petition. Half way through the effort, when the “good news” came out that 11,000 signatures had been gathered thus far, I had the sinking feeling that at best, the situation would end up where it is right now, with the issue going to the ballot along with the newspapers ‘educating’ the public with their typical yellow journalism. At that point in the program, I had brought in over 200 signatures, and helped one of my kids bring in about 150 more.
I would have been willing to keep losing a lot of my income by donating money, and taking days off from my job as I did during the first half of the campaign, but when I saw so little effort being put forth from the majority of the patients, I realized that I was throwing income I need to survive down the drain.
Very, well said Denita! I agree 100%
People want to have access to cannabis but they are too damn lazy and uneducated to make it happen. Ignorance IS NOT bliss, its not hard to do a tiny bit of research or even at minimum ask a couple questions. Most people i talk to dont have a clue of what they are supposed to be voting for this fall in order to keep our mmj program alive….nor do they care…….its sad.