News coverage here:

• KECI: Medical Marijuana Advocates March in Missoula
• Missoulian: Missoula crowd rallies for right to medical marijuana

And some photos from participants:

Some photos are large, please be patient.

Missoula, Wednesday
Missoula, Wednesday
Missoula, Wednesday
Missoula, Wednesday
Missoula, Wednesday
Missoula, Wednesday
Missoula, Wednesday
Missoula, Wednesday

Missoula, Saturday
Missoula, Saturday
Missoula, Saturday

Bozeman, Wednesday
Bozeman, Wednesday
Bozeman, Wednesday
Bozeman, Wednesday
Bozeman, Wednesday
Bozeman, Wednesday
Bozeman, Wednesday
Bozeman, Wednesday

One the proponents testifying in support of the repeal bill was Missoula Police Chief Mark Muir.

Law enforcement officials are generally anti-cannabis (despite many exceptions), and everyone is entitled to their opinion.  Mr. Muir had every right to be there and express his personal views.

However, he appeared in uniform, apparently as a representative of the City of Missoula. At the hearing, he stated:

“Think Gulf oil spill.  Think again when people say we can’t put the genie back in the bottle, that we can’t put a cap on this… I will be available for questions later.”

EDIT: Later, Chief Muir stated:

“Repeal is just one option. Certainly a very viable option given the speed at which this problem has escalated out of control. I will tell you that I don’t believe that putting this to a vote of the citizens in a few years is a good idea because it would let this problem continue to grow at too fast of a rate. It’s been growing almost exponentially. We can regulate this. It will be expensive, just as regulating alcohol, just as regulating prescription drugs, all have proven to be very expensive, and the society effects are huge. Let’s remember that there was a medicinal exemption to Prohibition and look where we are today, 91 years later.”

So, he didn’t explicitly recommend repeal, but  by lining up as a proponent, he certainly hinted his encouragement and support for it.

Initiative 148, which created Montana’s medical marijuana program and was approved by 62% of voters. But in Missoula, support was much stronger. Here’s a map of Missoula legislative districts, with voter support for I-148 in red. Click it to see a larger version.

Which leads me to ask, as an employee of the City of Missoula, was Chief Muir acting in his capacity as a representative of the city?

Was his presence, and his message, endorsed by City Council?

Were his travel expenses paid by Missoula taxpayers?

Did he take a vacation day, or was he on the clock?

Food for thought.

Chief Muir knows the law and is a smart and capable guy — I’ve met him.  It’s my assumption that he was expressing his personal views, on his own dime.  But he should have made that clear in the hearing.

“IGO, Calif.—Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko, his budget under pressure in a weak economy, has laid off staff, reduced patrols and even released jail inmates. But there’s one mission on which he’s spending more than in recent years: pot busts.

“The reason is simple: If he 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. The majority of the funding would have to be used to fight pot. Marijuana may not be the county’s most pressing crime problem, the sheriff says, but “it’s where the money is.”

“…To save still more, Mr. Bosenko closed a floor of the county jail and gave early release to 185 inmates, among them 30 convicted drunk drivers. “Those people will probably go out and drink and drive again and hurt people,” the sheriff says.

“…While freeing inmates, the sheriff still had several hundred thousand dollars of federal money to spend on pot patrols, such as an operation that began at 4:30 one morning in May.”

Strapped Police Run on Fumes, and Federal Pot-Fighting Cash

Watch the full episode. See more MontanaPBS Presents.

The Montana primary election is in just a few days (Tuesday, June 8th). If you are able to vote, it is very important that you do so. Really. Do it. Put it on your calendar and do it. The people we elect this year will make decisions about Montana marijuana laws on your behalf in less than a year.

We can help. Check out our latest version of the 2010 Montana NORML Voter Guide. Here’s a few quotes:

Eileen Carney, running in HD1 (Libby), says: “We spend too much money trying to make people not do what they want to do. It would be better to allow them to use marijuana responsibly, tax them like alcohol, and only put in jail the ones who are not able to control their habit — just like alcohol.”

Ken Peterson, running in HD46 (Billings), says: “I do not believe that recreational marijuana should be available.” (Good luck with that.)

Cheryl Wolfe, running in HD11 (Polson), says: “My goal is ultimately not the taxation of marijuana, but to stop the waste of our resources enforcing destructive and discriminatory criminal prosecution of marijuana use.”

Ellie Hill, running in HD 94 (Missoula), says: “[Tax & Regulate for all adults?]  Yes. According to Montana NORML, the State of Montana could benefit from $24,000,000 in direct tax revenues related to licensing fees for producers and retailers, payroll taxes, and the additional jobs created by regulating the use and sales on marijuana.”

For much, much more, download the latest copy of the 2010 Montana NORML Voter Guide. The Guide documents dozens of candidates’ public statements on medical marijuana and the creation of a legal market for all adults. If you care about this issue, you’ll download it and vote.

So, you know what to do. Inform yourself, and vote.

Now, the news:

Montana Marijuana News

• Highway patrol on lookout for marijuana-addled drivers
• Other states facing medical marijuana explosion
• Medical marijuana’s popularity catches many off-guard
• Medical marijuana — easing pain, raising fears: ‘Fixes’ in works for state’s pot law
• 9 percent of Montana parolees carry medical marijuana cards
• Entrepreneur in pot industry using best business practices
• Medical marijuana business has far-reaching economic impact (this is the article for which many of you helped provide sources – thank you!)
• Banks and medical marijuana caregivers debate over state and federal laws
• State pot policy in bad need of fix
• Great Falls bans medical marijuana businesses outright
  
• Citizen coverage of the work towards legislative consensus on medical marijuana, i.e., how will the Montana medical marijuana law change in 2011? (Thanks Ardyce!)
• Cannabis caravans fuel medical-pot boom in Montana

Marijuana News from Beyond Our Border

• Video: Fox News Freedom Watch’s Judge Napolitano w/ Paul Armentano, the Deputy Director of NORML
• California: Cannabis workers unionizing in California
• Denver: Speakers for SAFER and the (very important) Women’s Marijuana Movement speak out
• U.S. Supreme Court: Remaining silent doesn’t count.
• Denver: Beer brewery cleverly publishes fake ‘caregiver’ ad, 35 Cents/oz
• Colorado: Marijuana T-shirt Mall Protest

I’ll be out of town for the next 6 days without internet access (wandering in the desert!), and we have volunteers updating our Facebook page and Twitter.

While I’m gone, all of you who are able will have gone to the polls (or filled out your absentee ballot) and voted for someone who you want to represent you in Helena next year. Without an engaged citizenry, we will not create positive change.

In Liberty.

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

Friends & Countrymen,

Please forward this newsletter to your friends who care about marijuana law reform in Montana. (Subscribe here.)

This week, it’s our sense that more articles are starting to accept marijuana as an industry, a category oflegitimate commerce in which respectable people engage. Check out the Rolling Stone and New York Times articles below. While there’s a medical marijuana firestorm to prepare for in next year’s legislature, it seems to me that we have the momentum for now.

Yes, people are still getting nailed with criminal charges for marijuana every single day in Montana (which must stop), but society is getting more comfortable (even as we collectively squirm and protest) with the idea ofcannabis as commodity, not contraband.

However, there is much to be concerned about.  I’m told (by a reliable source) that some Montana patients and caregivers are selling “medical marijuana” into the black market (regular people) virtually every day — and unknowingly selling to undercover narcotics cops.  These cases are like ammunition stockpiles. Just imagine if there are a flood of medical-to-black-market busts just before the legislature begins.  Efforts to restrict medical marijuana vigorously (or even, repeal the law!) will have that much more ammo.

Montana NORML will push to “get past medical” in the coming legislature.  In the meantime, I hope cardholders exercise some prudent restraint to avoid fueling the coming storm.

And now, the news…

Montana Marijuana News

• Libby City Council and marijuana growers met this week to hash things out, so to speak.
• A new marijuana store opens in Billings this week.
• Great Falls considering three options for marijuana. #1 is total ban (in fear of federal law). Or, detailed, strict regulation. Here’s the details (PDF). Public meeting April 13th.
• Marijuana Education Day in Missoula, 4/19. (what can you donate to the silent auction?)
• Global Marijuana March in Missoula, 5/1. (can you hang posters? Can you run a march in your next of the woods?)
• The City of Havre would like to hear from you concerning medical marijuana.
• “Cannabis Conventions” hit the road in Montana this week and next. Check the schedule.
• Stevensville to pass interim pot ban. (this link may expire)

Other Marijuana News This Week

• Rolling Stone: From California to downtown Detroit, there’s a green revolution sweeping across the nation — and it’s changing the weed business forever
• New York Times: Legal-Marijuana Advocates Focus on a New Green
• Reason: In the war on drugs, the drugs are winning. Time to legalize marijuana.
• Massachusetts: Considering taxation & regulation of cannabis.
• Colorado: Could legalization hurt the booming medical pot business?
• Colorado: 1,000 medical marijuana applications, every day.
• Colorado: 340 vendors on display the Colorado Cannabis Convention
• Washington: Governor allows more professionals to OK medical marijuana.
• California: Outlaw pot growers fear legalization.

Was this newsletter of interest? Well, Montana NORML could not do what we do without your financial support. You can donate (and get cool gifts) at http://mtnorml.org/join — we hope to hear from you this month.

Businesses – would you like to host a Montana NORML donation jar? Or donate a gift to our upcoming silent auction? Just email norml@montananorml.org and let us know.

Onwards and upwards.

• Montana is a bastion of individuals’ rights. Our government should not interfere with a citizen’s decision to use marijuana, a substance that has been proven less harmful than tobacco or alcohol, has never caused an overdose death, and moved Francis Young, the DEA’s own administrative law judge, to declare it “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man”. Marijuana users should not be jailed for growing, possessing, or using personal amounts of marijuana. Unfortunately, current Montana marijuana penalties don’t reflect that sentiment. We hope to change that.

• Doctors and other caregivers should be able to prescribe marijuana to patients who, in their professional judgment, would benefit from its therapeutic effects, without fear of criminal, civil, or professional sanction. Check out our medical marijuana page for more information.

• In the interest of Montana’s agricultural economy, industrial hemp, a cousin of the marijuana plant currently banned by the DEA, should be explored as a versatile alternative crop for Montana’s farmers.

It is with these goals in mind that Montana NORML will strive to be an effective activist organization. If you’d like to help, or have questions or comments, please let us know. If you have an opinion you’d like others to hear, you can speak out on our discussion page.

Thanks for visiting. — norml@montananorml.org