{"id":51739,"date":"2021-12-14T05:39:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-14T13:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2021\/12\/14\/montana-lawmakers-approve-marijuana-rules-ahead-of-january-1-launch-of-legal-sales\/"},"modified":"2021-12-14T13:45:56","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T21:45:56","slug":"montana-lawmakers-approve-marijuana-rules-ahead-of-january-1-launch-of-legal-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2021\/12\/14\/montana-lawmakers-approve-marijuana-rules-ahead-of-january-1-launch-of-legal-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Montana Lawmakers Approve Marijuana Rules Ahead Of January 1 Launch Of Legal Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of work went into this. I think we\u2019ve found a pretty good balance for the people of Montana.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

By Arren Kimbel-Sannit, Daily Montanan<\/strong><\/p>\n

A state legislative panel has reached tentative consensus with the Montana Department of Revenue on a series of recreational marijuana regulations that lawmakers informally objected to<\/a> in a meeting last week, resolving\u2014at least for now\u2014the latest in a series of hiccups that have cropped up as the state nears the launch of its adult-use cannabis market.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers on the Economic Affairs Interim Committee, which has some oversight authority over administrative rulemaking in the state, worked with the Department of Revenue during the weekend to clear up differences in interpretation of the state\u2019s recreational marijuana statute, which directs the department to draft rules to implement portions of Montana\u2019s burgeoning cannabis program.<\/p>\n

The committee ended its brief session<\/a> on Monday with a unanimous vote to lift the\u00a0blanket objection\u00a0to the rulemaking process it voiced last week after the department\u00a0presented several revisions<\/a>\u00a0to the rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of work went into this. I think we\u2019ve found a pretty good balance for the people of Montana,\u201d said Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, who serves on the interim committee.<\/p>\n

Adult-use marijuana markets in the state officially open January 1.<\/p>\n

The committee\u2019s objection to the rulemaking process arose from a handful of sticking points: Ellsworth and Sen. Shane Morigeau, D-Missoula, for example, were concerned that\u00a0language<\/a>\u00a0put forth by the department wouldn\u2019t allow Native American tribes, which are awarded a single marijuana cultivator license under law, to scale up their production as commercial dispensaries can. Morigeau was also interested in seeing a moratorium on licensing for new marijuana testing facilities, so as to give existing labs that opened during the medical marijuana era an advantage in the early days of the adult-use market. Other changes were more technical in nature.<\/p>\n

Morigeau dropped the issue of the testing lab moratorium\u2014both lawmakers and the department must be wary<\/a> of creating policy through rule that didn\u2019t previously exist in state law\u2014but the committee was able to clear up confusion with the department on other issues. The administrative rule covering the combined-use licenses afforded to tribes, for instance, now clarifies that those licenses are subject to the same scaling and tiering provisions as other dispensaries under the law.<\/p>\n

Another revised rule also includes language requested by Ellsworth and Morigeau to emphasize that cultivators with existing outdoor grow operations may continue to grow outside, but may not scale up their production. State law generally bars future cultivators from outdoor growing.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t the first time that the department\u2019s rules rankled lawmakers and industry officials. Advertising and packaging restrictions, employment rules for those with previous criminal violations<\/a>,\u00a0a ban on CBD sales<\/a>\u00a0and more have all created heartburn, though DOR has generally been willing to work with lawmakers to meet legislative intent. The department has said it\u2019s doing its best to interpret the state\u2019s flagship marijuana implementation bill<\/a>, HB701, which passed this year, but that its length, intricacy and occasional ambiguity doesn\u2019t always make it easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat bill is anything but a piece of perfection as far as legislative intent goes,\u201d DOR Director Brendan Beatty\u00a0told lawmakers\u00a0at an interim committee meeting<\/a> in November.<\/p>\n

Morigeau acknowledged that there have been issues, but said that ultimately, both lawmakers and the department are working under challenging conditions to implement a potentially massive program under a tight time limit. The fact that lawmakers are constitutionally limited to 90 days every two years to actually legislate doesn\u2019t make it much easier, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrying to put the wheels on something of this magnitude was a challenge,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had 90 days to do that, because otherwise a lot of this stuff would have been madness.\u00a0Time has really been our greatest challenge in all of this. This is a new industry for the DOR, for Montana, it\u2019s a learning experience for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

This piece was first published by Daily Montanan.<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Montana Lawmakers Approve Marijuana Rules Ahead Of January 1 Launch Of Legal Sales<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\nRead More: Montana Lawmakers Approve Marijuana Rules Ahead Of January 1 Launch Of Legal Sales<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cLots of work went into this. I think we\u2019ve found a pretty good balance for the people of Montana.\u201d By Arren Kimbel-Sannit, Daily Montanan A state legislative panel has reached tentative consensus with the Montana Department of Revenue on a series of recreational marijuana regulations that lawmakers informally objected toContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":457,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51740,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51739\/revisions\/51740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}