Story available at http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/05/13/news/local/28-medicalmarijuana.txt

Published on Wednesday, May 13, 2009.
Last modified on 5/13/2009 at 12:28 am

By MATT HAGENGRUBER
Of The Gazette Staff

Mark Higgins was quietly looking two weeks ago for a storefront to rent for his medical-marijuana business. He called two property owners on Main Street, one of whom has a small space that Higgins thought would be perfect.

Higgins didn't know that the owner of the building at 649 Main St. was City Councilman Denis Pitman.

"I own the whole building," Pitman said. "He called to ask if we have any restrictions."

In 2004, 62 percent of Montana voters voted to legalize the use of medical marijuana. Last October, Higgins became a licensed user of the drug, and last month he became a licensed caregiver.

Higgins said he suffers from serious back problems after falling off a firetruck while fighting a wildfire. Now unemployed, the 36-year-old said medical marijuana dramatically improved his life and he now wants the medicine to be available to more people in Billings. Right now, Higgins drives to Bozeman once a week to resupply. He uses an ounce of marijuana a week, which is equal to about one sandwich bag, he said.

"If I don't have my medicine, I'm not sitting up in my chair. I'm not sitting up at all," he said. "I want (the store) to be a place for people to get the supplies they need so they can supply themselves with their own medicine."

After Higgins called Pitman about renting the storefront, Pitman brought his inquiry to city staff. Pitman wondered if Higgins could legally open such a store in Billings, and what other legal questions surround the matter.

A chain of e-mails from city officials finally made its way to Assistant City Attorney Craig Hensel, who provided a preliminary legal opinion last week. Hensel is expected to provide a memo to city officials today. Essentially, medical marijuana is legal in Montana, but the matter is murky at the federal level, Hensel said. The wild card is how the federal government enforces marijuana laws.

"There isn't a real clear black or white answer to the question 'would this be legal,' since the state law is vague and yet untested in court in a grower/provider context," Hensel wrote. "The practice may violate federal law, even if the feds might have a current policy to not enforce the law against legitimate providers who are operating legally under state law."

Hensel said he talked with the County Attorney's Office and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Billings, and no one seems to know what the new administration will do with medical-marijuana laws.

Kevin O'Brien, a spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office, said no local government agency has asked for a legal opinion on the matter, and the AG's office can't give legal advice to private citizens.

"The Montana Medical Marijuana Act clearly opens up a lot of questions," he said. "These questions are definitely not going away."

Higgins isn't sure if he'll open up a store somewhere. If he did, it wouldn't be open for three or four months, he said. He only has one patient right now, and the state law, administered by the Department of Public Health and Human Services, allows users and caregivers to have just six plants and one ounce of marijuana per patient.

Higgins said any store he opens would be tightly controlled, with only card-carrying patients allowed to buy marijuana and a videotape made of every sale. Right now, Higgins must supply his sole patient from his well-kept Billings home. A store would allow him to sell equipment for using marijuana in the various forms it can be ingested, including smoking, eating "ganja butter" on toast or brewing it as tea to drink.

"I would be much more comfortable doing it in a store," he said. "I'm not the guy you meet behind Wal-Mart. I'm a guy who cares about doing the right thing."

Tom Daubert, a Helena political consultant who founded the advocacy group Patients and Families United, said such a business would be tough to keep open, but medical-marijuana patients in Montana are hoping to see such stores open.

"The economics of it absolutely mystify me. I don't see it," he said. "But there's broad approval from the Montana public for medical marijuana."

Higgins said he'll wait to hear from city officials about the legality of such a store, but he wants officials to understand that medical-marijuana users aren't on the fringes of society, he said. Higgins and his wife have three daughters, and he said he is careful never to smoke marijuana in front of them. He said he has even talked with school officials at his daughters' school about the matter.

"My kids have never seen me smoke it," he said. "By not making it a big deal in my house, it's not a big deal for my kids."


Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.

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Hot 101.9 Fm( The Big J show )

Thursday May 14th 2009 Mark Was on Hot 101.9 Fm With Big jay and Mcluvin. We had a discussion about medical marijuana and also took listners calls.
The Billings support is very encouraging for a Medical Marijuana store.

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