This morning I woke up and sent the following question to over 200 Montana legislative candidates. I asked the question, “Would you support a bill that taxes and regulates marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol? Why or why not?”

I already have some encouraging responses (and potential bill sponsors), and will be posting some news about that soon.

Next week, I’m off to the national NORML convention, a 3-day, information-packed, energy-multiplying, strategy-refining summit of marijuana policy reform leaders and experts from around the nation and the world.

So, there will be no newsletter next week.

However, there’s lots for you to do in the coming weeks.

• Make sure you’re registered to vote, and write on a slip of paper what Montana House and Senate district you vote in. Tape it to the side of your monitor. Click here for help.
• If you want to take personal action to help a candidate in Billings defeat his anti-marijuana opponent on Saturday, Sept 11, reply to this email right away and say “I want to help in Billings”. Transportation might be available to and from.
• Sep 7-10, Polson, a medical marijuana “awareness day” hosted at the Jette store. Call 406-249-0801 for details.
• Sep 9-11 in Portland, Oregon, the national NORML convention.
• Sep 11, Missoula: 15th Annual Missoula Hempfest, a family-friendly hemp-focused event with fantastic music, a beer garden, hemp vendors, and fun for all. Visit our NORML table and say “high” to volunteer Cynthia.
• Sep 14, Bozeman: “Montana Cannabis Forum: Fact from Fiction”,  featuring local and international experts, starting at 7PM at the Emerson Cultural Center Theatre.
• Sep 24, statewide: last day to register as a write-in candidate (PDF form here). It would be great to have someone (anyone) run in HD60 (Park City). An anti-marijuana candidate is running there unopposed. Ready to run? I’ll help!
• Oct 10 & 11, Bozeman: MMGA event, details to be announced soon.

Oh also — anyone know of a dentist who would be willing to barter for services with a friend of NORML?

Oh, here’s the latest news:

Montana Marijuana News

• Hamilton marijuana caregiver pleads guilty to felony charges
• Convicted drug dealer gives up medical marijuana card in new fed case
• Missoula – Not so green campus
• Doc advocates ‘professional’ medical marijuana
• Gazette opinion: Panel makes progress to fix medical marijuana law
• Cracked pot law needs a fix
• Montana Medical Marijuana: Long Way to Go
• Police arrest Havre medical marijuana caregivers
• Man sues Cascade over medical marijuana dispensary moratorium
• Changes in medical marijuana rules headed to Montana Legislature

More Marijuana News

• Sign this petition to demand that Facebook stop censoring marijuana
• Prohibitionists Say The Darndest Things
• Why EVERYONE should support legalization (forward this one)
• California: Proposition 19 is the right direction
• Governor Gary Johnson on Ending Marijuana Prohibition: ‘It’s Gonna Happen’
• “The Flower” Highlights Social and Economic Costs of Marijuana Prohibition
• Colorado: State Scrambling To Enforce New Med Pot Rules

By the way, Montana NORML is an all-volunteer organization. There are no paid staff.  You can help us offset expenses by becoming a supporting member today. Thanks.

• allows 3 immature and 3 flowering plants (instead of just “6″)
• eliminates “affirmative defense”
• eliminates “caregivers”, and instead creates a tiered system of providers, dispensaries and commercial growers (with hefty annual licensing and inspection fees).
• restricts providers from selling more than two ounces to any patient in a 30-day period
• requires a pain specialist in addition to another doctor — just for pain patients
• makes failure to carry your card a misdemeanor
• prohibits provider/doctor partnerships or financial arrangements

Get all the details here. Here’s a portion of my speech yesterday at the Caregiver Expo. Thanks to all who attended:

These United States of America are headed for marijuana legalization. This will happen at different times in different states and with different details, but make no mistake, it’s happening. More and more, the standard answer to the question “how should we deal with marijuana?” will become “pretty much like beer.”

Some of you may object “no, it’s a sacred and precious medicine, not beer!”

Look — the best possible thing for cardholders is full-blown legalization. It might not be the best thing for your caregiver business, but it is certainly best for everyone else — including people for whom cannabis is truly medicine.

Allowing anyone to grow their own or buy marijuana from licensed storefronts would reduce prices, increase reliability and quality, and allow the free market to determine which merchants have the best combinations of quality and price.

It’s easy to get mired in debates about details like plant counts, organic versus pesticide, tax policy, and commercialization versus nonprofit co-ops.

But the most important thing, the thing we all need to keep our eye on, is making all of that possible. Through the legalization of cannabis for all adults. I’m saying it’s important to cut to the chase, and not get bogged down in complicated, half-tongue-in-cheek pseudo-medical regulations.

I cringe when I hear caregivers say ‘we should be regulated like pharmacies!’ — I acknowledge that many of you are experts at your craft, but you are expert farmers, not pharmacists. Don’t mix the two up.

Don’t get me wrong — quality and cleanliness, safety — of cannabis matters, whether you’re talking medical or social. But we don’t need to pharmaceuticalize cannabis. Consider: microbreweries tell you the alcohol content of their varieties.

The public and the legislature already subconsciously understand that marijuana will soon be regulated like beer. Look at what’s often proposed: “away from schools and churches!” (just like bars)

Finally. As many of you doubtless know, people in California will vote on marijuana legalization in a few months. The initiative they’re voting on isn’t perfect, but deserves your support. Visit taxcannabis.org for details.

If it passes, the dominoes truly start to fall, and we need to be ready. We need to be ready to stand up without fear and say: Marijuana prohibition is an expensive and tragic failure. It’s time to regulate marijuana for all adults.

I hope you’ll join me.

And now, the news:

Montana Marijuana News:

• Medical marijuana trips up Montana
• Silver Bow County considers marijuana ban
• Deer Lodge commissioner comments on possible marijuana law changes
• Video: Legislative committee gets closer to a new medical marijuana bill
• No marijuana allowed at Bozeman hempfest
• Transfer of Marijuana Between Caregivers is now a Felony in Missoula
• Can you legally bring your medical marijuana in airports?

Bonus News:

• Rolling Stone: Just Say NOW
• Forbes: Mapping the Legal Marijuana Industry
• AP: Colorado caregiver facing federal cultivation charges will not be allowed to use state law in defense
• Alternet: The 8 Most Absurd Excuses for Trying to Defeat Marijuana Legalization (no, Phillip Morris isn’t taking over)
• Why conservatives should support marijuana legalization

We could use your help, by the way. Would you like to get involved? You can always start a subchapter or become a supporting member. I am also looking for a volunteer with Excel skills and an eye for detail to do some data auditing. Let me know. Onwards and upwards.

A few things on my mind tonight.  First and foremost are two wacky letters to the editor that appeared in Montana papers today.

The first is from an out-of-state lifelong prohibitionist who believes that anyone who smokes a joint is supporting the “Afghanistani” terrorists who caused 9/11.  (Yes, I know most of that sentence is absurd).

The second is from a surgeon in Lewistown who believes our medical marijuana law is a “threat to civil society” and needs to be updated in various ways, such as 5-doctor panels, $1000 6-month re-certification fees, 30-year age requirements on caregivers, and malpractice insurance requirements.

You can read both and weep, or laugh, or scream, or post outraged comments on the newspaper website or Facebook. But you will not be helping.

The way to respond to ludicrous letters in the paper is to respond with a letter of your own. It needs to be well reasoned and brief. It should be sent in the next few days, and reference the original.

And obviously, we think it should propose taxing and regulating cannabis for all adults, as the solution to the medical marijuana conundrum.

Here’s a reason to write the letter: politicians (known for listening carefully to which way the wind is blowing) pay “clipping services” to gauge the opinion of society, and what appears in the opinion section of the paper is a major part of that. They figure that for everyone who writes a letter, there are at least a hundred people who didn’t bother. Which will you be?

If you need help, let me know.

Next, I had the opportunity to speak with an employee of the Missoula Police Department today. We talked about the craziness of the medical marijuana scene, and he told stories about 23-yr-old dudes walking in grinning, cards in hand, asking for their “weed” back. He went on to talk about how the medical marijuana law needs to be severely restricted to people on the verge of death for whom nothing else works, etc etc.

I said, “Or, we could treat it more like beer.”

He immediately nodded and said, “Sure, but for now it’s medical and….”
That was enlightening to me. He agreed that the beer model works for cannabis. I think most people do. If we could just get past medical.

You should know by now that the legislative committee working on medical marijuana for the state of Montana has been hard at work this summer.

If you are closely following the progress of the revisions to Montana’s medical marijuana bill, these reports will be of interest. Included on the list are law enforcement recommendations,  a review of Colorado’s recent medical marijuana changes, ambiguities in the definition of a “patient”, etc. Click here and spend an hour reviewing what the state’s been discussing.

Then, email them your polite thoughts on the matter.

Finally, I’ve come to understand that the organizers of the Bozeman Hempfest are not happy with NORML, and in fact intend to pass out fliers at the event urging visitors to “boycott” Montana NORML.  If you decide to pay the entry fee and attend the event, I encourage you to request a conversation with the event organizers to hear their argument.  I’ve tried, but don’t understand it.

Enough. Here’s the latest news:

• Poplar police chief’s home searched for suspected marijuana growing
• WSJ: How to deal with medical cannabis in the workplace?
• Marijuana cookies possible defense in double shooting of wife, nanny
• Poplar police chief not a patient, arrested for growing marijuana
• Colorado rakes in $7 million in marijuana licensing fees – Montana next?
• Missoula man pleads guilty to selling black-market marijuana to caregivers
• Montana: Medical marijuana users must be state residents
• Letter to editor in Missoula Indy demands a response. Will you join me?
• Viewpoint: Let’s clear up the very flawed Medical Marijuana Act
• Cannabusiness medical marijuana documentary playing Saturday on Montana PBS
• In other news, no Mexicans killed over Corona beer

If you find these updates useful, please consider becoming a supporting member of Montana NORML.

Keep on keepin’ on.

Does that mean tobacco-company weed harvested and ground up by the acre by giant robots? Maybe.  Don’t worry, there will always be room for high-end marijuana, just like we have plenty of options in the high-end beer and wine categories. But there’s no getting away from the fact that with full legalization comes a potentially dramatic price reduction.

Legalization might cut into growers’ profits, yes. I’m sorry about that, but reduced profits are no reason to keep arresting people for something that should not be a crime.  And, you’ll have lots more legal customers!  For more on this phenomenon in California, check out this NORML blog post.

Moving on — most of you already know that a committee of legislators is meeting throughout the summer to discuss changes to Montana’s medical marijuana law.  The idea is that bringing interested parties (law enforcement, schools, growers, patient advocates) together in the same room enough times will identify areas of concern and generate thoughtful discussion, and eventually a proposal that is tolerable to all sides will result. And, the thinking goes, this proposal will therefore sail through the legislature and be implemented in the spring.

We should expect significant changes to the law next year. If you’re a patient or caregiver, pay close attention, because, who knows, your legal status may flip to criminal with the stroke of a pen.  If you want to know more, don’t forget these meetings are public. Anyone can attend, or watch over the internet. Check the committee website for details.

If you show up, you’ll optionally have 30 seconds to state your case to the committee. Of course we recommend you tell them politely to have the courage to get past medical.

Speaking of getting involved, our friends at Montanans for Responsible Legislation (the group suing the city of Great Falls over their marijuana business ban) are throwing a huge fundraiser at the Rock Creek Lodge this weekend. Three days of music, food, and camping, with drum circles, fire dancers, vendors, caregivers and general fun to be sure. Check their website for details.

RUMOR ALERT: We’ve heard some fascinating rumors and conspiracy theories about Montana NORML in the last few weeks. I’d like to respond to all of them at once, so please, if you have heard anything, let me know.

Finally, here’s the news of the week:

Montana Marijuana News:

• Montana nursing board sidesteps medical marijuana issue
• MCN founder arrested for disorderly conduct
• Missoula: 1000′ school zones must be pot free
• Missoula: Nevermind about the 1000′ school zone (but staying out anyway is probably a good idea).
• Bozeman caps marijuana providers at a max of 32
• Bozeman immediately hits marijuana grower cap in one day
• Montana Lawmakers: Medical marijuana is “out of control”
• Committee considering banning people with criminal records from becoming marijuana growers, registering garden locations
• Montana lawmakers focus on ‘gray areas’ in medical marijuana law
• Montana Caregivers Network shuts down cannabis caravans

Thanks all, and remember:  we have Truth, Justice, and Liberty on our side.

You can get the free weekly NORML newsletter delivered to your inbox by signing up here.

That’s about in-line with my expectations. I have heard from some growers that it’s incredibly difficult to make a profit at $250/oz, but I’m not buying it. If you have persistent business or agricultural inefficiencies, sure, but not if you really have your act together.

It can’t be harder to grow than saffron. It’s just a plant, after all.

In other news, the Missoulian published my article on the “medical marijuana crime issue”.  Weigh in with comments, or let me know what you think.

From The Blog:

• Truth, Justice, and Liberty: There is simply nothing wrong with adults consuming cannabis responsibly, and policies to the contrary are a misapplication of the criminal sanction.
• What will happen if California legalizes marijuana? The pretax retail price of marijuana will substantially decline, likely by more than 80 percent.
• Cash-Strapped Police Chase Pot Growers for Funding: If the Sheriff steps up his pursuit of marijuana growers, his department is eligible for roughly half a million dollars a year in federal anti-drug funding, helping save some jobs.

Montana Marijuana News

• Whitefish Tables Vote on Medical Marijuana
• Missoula restricts Cannabusinesses
• Hill County (Havre) proposes medical marijuana law
• Belgrade Montana Bans Sale of Marijuana
• Billings Cops Making Marijuana Deliveries

Lots more on our Twitter feed, if you’re into that sort of thing.

If our messages are valued, you can help offset our costs here. Thanks in advance.

And get the free weekly Montana NORML Newsletter delivered to your inbox here.

I’ve been saying for a while that there’s no reason cannabis should sell for more than $100/oz except for prohibition, and the gurus at RAND agree. They project around $88-91/oz, which includes a hypothetical $50/oz tax.

Their other California conclusions include:

• The pretax retail price of marijuana will substantially decline, likely by more than 80 percent. The price consumers face will depend heavily on taxes, the structure of the regulatory regime, and how taxes and regulations are enforced.
• Consumption will increase, but it is unclear how much because we know neither the shape of the demand curve nor the level of tax evasion (which reduces revenues and the prices that consumers face).
• Tax revenues could be dramatically lower or higher than the $1.4 billion estimate; for example, uncertainty about the federal response to California legalization can swing estimates in either direction.
• Previous studies find that the annual cost of enforcing marijuana laws ranges from around $200 million to nearly $1.9 billion; our estimates show that the costs are probably less than $300 million.

Read the full report here: Altered State? Assessing How Marijuana Legalization in California Could Influence Marijuana Consumption and Public Budgets

If you care deeply about the evolution of Montana’s medical marijuana law, be sure to pay attention to the legislative committee responsible for fixing it. You do have a voice, but you need to speak to be heard.

Some of you asked what next steps may be. In my view, some of us should work to preserve and extend our medical marijuana law, being mindful of over-medicalization, and simultaneously offer legislators a way out of the medical morass: a tax & regulate bill. That’s my goal here at NORML.

Such a bill may or may not pass the legislature, but with your help, we will certainly get people talking about it — and that might lead to a ballot initiative, which is exactly what happened with medical marijuana in Montana in 2003 and 2004.  You’d help with that, right?

Anyway, here’s the news:

Montana Marijuana News

• Hamilton Montana considers ordinance to deal with burning of medical marijuana trimmings
• Video: Legislators could target patients 18-30 and public smoking of medical marijuana
• College kid in Missoula nailed for selling pot, x, shrooms from dorm. Now the dorm is drug-free.
• Michigan coverage of MCN’s canceled medical marijuana clinic
• Lawmakers target traveling clinics for medical marijuana cards
• PBS: Montana communities struggling with medical marijuana regulation
• Bozeman releases draft medical marijuana law – zoning, school zones, public use restrictions
• Tearful Deer Lodge Montana residents plead with city to make medical marijuana garden go away

By the way, you can contribute to our efforts here. Thank you.

All kinds of news this week regarding “Safe Communities, Safe Kids“, and their efforts to gather enough signatures to make the ballot and ask Montanans to vote on the repeal of medical marijuana in Montana. While they seem well organized and funded, everyone I’ve spoken to who has organized initiative signature gathering says they stand little chance of success.

We’ll know soon whether they beat the odds. If they do get enough signatures, then voting in November will be even more important. Are you registered? Are you sure?

Voting in sparsely-populated Montana can make a really big difference. Lots of races in the primary were decided by a few dozen votes. That means you and your friends in a district could cause a victory, or defeat, if you got organized!

Prior to the November election, we’ll update our Voter Guide with the most current info available.

Some time before the election, I hope you’ll take a moment to become a supporting member of Montana NORML. We could not do the work we do without your help. We have some cool premiums like hemp tshirts, cannabis-leaf lapel pins, buttons, books, and stickers.

While you have your pocketbook out, I suggest you also give to the Tax Cannabis initiative in California. This doesn’t affect Montanans directly, and the initiative is probably not perfect in everyone’s eyes (how could it be), but it would legalize marijuana in a populous western state, and start the dominoes tipping! Here’s the Prince of Pot Marc Emery‘s take on the matter. Read it.

And now, the news:

Montana Marijuana News:

• Slightly Stoopid playing Ryan Creek Meadows, east of Missoula on their “Legalize It” tour, Tuesday, June 22nd.
• “Cannabusiness” – a documentary about the booming cannabis business in Montana, is available for online viewing now.
• Missoula’s Montana Pain Management medical marijuana store acquired by Colorado company
• Revamp, don’t reject medical marijuana law
• Medical Marijuana Madness in Montana
• Sarah Palin on marijuana legalization (fast forward to 6:19)
• Montana agency responds to massive medical marijuana application rate, new app will offer law enforcement 24/7 access
• Irony: Medical marijuana repeal petition can be signed in pharmacy
• Smear campaign continues: Violent motorcycle gang members all have Montana medical marijuana cards
• Montana patients defend marijuana
• 74 lbs of marijuana en route to Missoula dispensaries busted, feds prosecuting
• NPR: Medical marijuana is a patient-driven phenomenon
• Chinook Montana latest to establish medical marijuana moratorium
• Flathead: Medical Marijuana and the Workplace

Lots going on, I know. It can be overwhelming. A summary might be: the Montana medical marijuana scene is at a painfully roiling boil. Staying focused on a regulated system for all adults is more important now than ever. Here’s my video message to that effect.

Thanks for your interest and support.

You can get the free weekly Montana NORML Newsletter delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

We’ve spent the last few weeks compiling various information about the people for whom you’ll have the chance to vote, including responses to a survey (conducted by MT NORML), candidates’ public statements about marijuana policy, and their voting history on marijuana bills.

This has been our most ambitious Voter Guide in 12 years (here’s our first from 1999), and we hope you’ll find this one useful. If you care about where your representatives in Helena stand on marijuana issues, you need this guide:

Montana NORML June 2010 Voter Guide

We’ll update it periodically as new information becomes available.

By the way, if you ever want to contact us, you can email norml@montananorml.org — put “marijuana” in the subject line to help avoid our hungry spam filter. You should get an auto-response acknowledging your note within a few minutes.

And now, the news:

Montana Marijuana News

• Butte: No plans to restrict medical marijuana businesses (like Columbia Falls & Missoula, so far)
  
• AP Newswire: Montana, other states look for ways to curb medical marijuana gold rush
• Billings: City starts enforcement of moratorium, shuts down 25 businesses.
• Montana Board of Medical Examiners released its position paper on medical marijuana, and then fined a doctor $2000, despite the law. Here’s what the doctor says.
• Whitefish: City delays vote on medical marijuana regulations
• Montana’s top narcotics cop Mark Long stopped at one of his many town hall meetings in Anaconda to express the harms of medical marijuana.
• Anaconda: Caregiver busted for too many plants.
• Ravalli County: Axe-handle assault team pleads not guilty in “medical marijuana beatdown”
• Billings Gazette Op-Ed: Consensus can solve medical marijuana problems
• Mineral County: Insights on the role the drug war plays for law enforcement from the Sheriff himself.
• Missoula: NORML Insights from the “Candidating” Forum about local candidates

Marijuana News from Beyond Montana

• Oakland: Cannabis Farm Study stuns industry, officials: A 7-acre warehouse complex of large-scale cannabis farming would result in 371 jobs and 58lbs of cannabis production per day and generate $59 million per year.
• Missouri: The pot-hunting, dog-killing SWAT team was found innocent of wrongdoing.
• Marijuana Arrests Continue To Drive Drug ‘Treatment’ Boom
• California: Latest polls on marijuana legalization
• California: Tax Cannabis!
• New Jersey: Governor seeks to delay country’s most restrictive medical marijuana law by 12 months

As for making marijuana legal in Montana, we’re working in earnest to develop a policy that would treat cannabis more like beer or wine: homegrown allowed, licensed commercial producers, and licensed commercial retailers responsible for age verification of customers. Next step will be to find a legislator with the courage to introduce a bill (we have a few ideas already, but if you’ve got advice, we’re happy to hear it).

Finally — I’ve heard rumors that some people who previously supported Montana NORML now have developed a conspiracy theory in which we want Walmart/Budweiser-type corporations to rule the cannabis industry. This is just not true.

An essential part of any cannabis regulation plan we would support is home cultivation of some reasonable quantity, just as we do with beer and wine. Most people don’t brew their own beer, but some do. We anticipate the same would be true of cannabis.

If you have lingering concerns, please let us know.

Onwards and upwards!

You can get the free weekly Montana NORML Newsletter delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.

Afterwards, I headed to the Badlander for a candidate forum put on by Forward Montana. It was called “candidating“, and was modelled on speed dating, in which you just have a few minutes with your partner, and then everyone switches. Cool idea, and a great way to meet a bunch of candidates and ask the questions you need answered. What follows is my brief recollections of those conversations.

Tyler Gernant, candidate for the U.S. House: He agreed that marijuana has no business being a schedule I drug federally, and that a system of responsible regulation is the wisest policy.  Results: Thumbs Up.

Tom Facey, candidate for Senate District 48:  I never really got out of him his position on the prospect of tax & regulate, as he kept coming back to medical marijuana.  Results: Inconclusive.

Ellie Hill, candidate for House District 94: She supports our efforts. Results: Thumbs Up.

Bryce Bennet, candidate for House District 92: He supports our efforts. Results: Thumbs Up.

Brad Giffin, candidate for Missoula County Sheriff: Right out of the gate, he said he thought it was inevitable that marijuana would become legal in the not-too-distant future, and he was fine with that.  He reminded me of William Macy.  Regarding Initiative #2, he would not change policy; i.e., his deputies would continue citing people for marijuana when it was encountered. He was concerned about the lack of an empirical test for impaired driving.  Results: Inconclusive.

Bob Parcell, candidate for Missoula County Sheriff. Now this guy seems like a SHERIFF. A smokejumper and 30-year Marine reservist with experience in the battle of Fallujah, he’s a no-nonsense military tough guy. I sat with him for 10 minutes or so, and he’s thoughtful and reasonable and willing to hear facts that counter his preconceived notions, such as marijuana causing cancer (which it does not). I talked to him about LEAP, and he was nodding in understanding that veteran narcotics cops may well end up believing that the Drug War was a tremendous waste of time and money and lives.  He said repeatedly that alcohol is about the worst thing out there.  (UPDATE: When I replied that well, maybe we should prohibit alcohol?” he said “no way, we know how that turned out”. ) He also said that no new policy would be issued by him related to Initiative #2, but pointed out that a guy smoking cannabis in his house is already the lowest possible priority. When I asked him how he would vote if an initiative that provided for responsible regulation of marijuana for adults was on the ballot, he paused, and said he’d abstain from voting, because he has to answer the question from “the other side” too. (I read that as cautiously supportive.)  He also was concerned about the lack of an empirical test for impaired driving. He said repeatedly that as a “lawman”, he’d enforce the law, as long as he didn’t believe it was unconstitutional or immoral. Results: Inconclusive.

On balance, because I chair the Initiative #2 committee, I think Brad Giffin might be easier to work with, but I didn’t spend too much time with him.

In a few weeks, we’ll have a chance to vote on the folks who might be headed to Helena to create the law of the land. The above is a subset of what you’ll find in our upcoming voters guide.

Not sure whether you’re registered to vote, or need to figure out who you’ll be voting for? The state provides the tool you need here.

If you can get to candidate forums and ask questions about where the hopefuls stand on regulating marijuana, please contact us with your findings!

-JM