HELENA — Medical marijuana advocates and patients are asking a judge to fix a mistake in a voter-approved ballot initiative that inadvertently delayed the re-opening of shuttered pot dispensaries in Montana by eight months.
A state law that limited medical marijuana providers to three patients apiece took effect on Aug. 31 after a five-year battle, leaving thousands of registered users without legal access to the drug.
Earlier this month, Montana voters passed Initiative 182 to repeal the three-patient limit, but the writers of the ballot measure accidentally put in a July 1, 2017, effective date, instead of making it immediately effective.
One lawsuit was filed Tuesday and another was to be filed this week asking District Judge James Reynolds of Helena to issue an order that would re-open marijuana dispensaries immediately.
“You and I and everybody else knows that when the public voted on I-182, they didn’t get into the minutia of the effective date,” said James Goetz, a Bozeman attorney representing the Montana Cannabis Industry Association.
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A state law that limited medical marijuana providers to three patients apiece took effect on Aug. 31 after a five-year battle, leaving thousands of registered users without legal access to the drug.
Earlier this month, Montana voters passed Initiative 182 to repeal the three-patient limit, but the writers of the ballot measure accidentally put in a July 1, 2017, effective date, instead of making it immediately effective.
One lawsuit was filed Tuesday and another was to be filed this week asking District Judge James Reynolds of Helena to issue an order that would re-open marijuana dispensaries immediately.
“You and I and everybody else knows that when the public voted on I-182, they didn’t get into the minutia of the effective date,” said James Goetz, a Bozeman attorney representing the Montana Cannabis Industry Association.
Read more
