Judge clears the way for Montana medical-marijuana patients to get new providers

A state judge Wednesday cleared the way for Montana’s medical-marijuana program to start renewing approval for the drug’s use by potentially thousands of patients, ruling that a three-patient limit for providers should be lifted immediately.
District Judge James Reynolds of Helena ruled that a voter-initiative provision removing the limit will take effect immediately, as intended by initiative drafters and supporters.
Supporters of Initiative 182, approved by voters a month ago, said they intended that the measure would remove the limit upon I-182’s passage by voters.
But an error in the drafting process had mistakenly changed the effective date of that provision to next July, they said.
I-182 supporters asked Reynolds to fix this “scrivener’s error.” State health officials did not oppose the request.
“I am ordering that section … of the initiative to take effect immediately,” Reynolds said after an hour-long hearing Wednesday morning. “That was in fact an error in the drafting process for this initiative and the (state) is directed to implement that section immediately, as intended by the voters of the state of Montana.”
Kate Cholewa, government-relations director for the Montana Cannabis Industry Association, told MTN News that the ruling is “very good news for many patients that have been waiting” to get access to their medical-marijuana providers.
She said she expects patients in need of the drug will be rushing to get their cards reinstated by the state and sign up with suppliers.
“Physicians who do provide medical marijuana referrals, their phones will be ringing off the hook, as people try to get back into the program,” Cholewa said. “And I think that providers will be busy helping patients with that paperwork and help them process it, and getting this moving.”
The three-patient limit for marijuana providers, enacted by the 2011 Legislature, didn’t take effect until Aug. 31 of this year, after a five-year court battle over the 2011 law that placed new, severe restrictions on medical marijuana in Montana.
State health officials in charge of the medical-marijuana program had required providers to identify which three patients they would continue to supply.
However, most providers said they couldn’t stay in business with only three customers. The industry estimated that the cutoff affected 10,000 medical-marijuana users in the state.
Earlier this year, the industry and its supporters worked to qualify I-182 for the November ballot. The measure not only eliminated the three-patient limit for providers, but also rolled back some other restrictions contained in the 2011 law.
Voters approved I-182 by 57 percent to 42 percent.
The removal of the three-patient limit, supporters said, was supposed to occur immediately if I-182 passed, while other provisions wouldn’t take effect until next July. But when the bill was under review by state and industry officials in its final drafting, the numbering of various sections’ effective date got mixed up, they said.
“It was submitted with the correct effective date,” Cholewa testified Wednesday. “There were several back-and-forths, as there are in these situations. “The correct date remained until the very last draft … when there was a bit of a flurry of activity in those two sections added.”

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