{"id":63309,"date":"2023-03-31T07:22:33","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T15:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2023\/03\/31\/montana-senators-kill-bill-to-eliminate-recreational-marijuana-dispensaries-and-limit-thc-potency\/"},"modified":"2023-03-31T17:46:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-01T01:46:11","slug":"montana-senators-kill-bill-to-eliminate-recreational-marijuana-dispensaries-and-limit-thc-potency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2023\/03\/31\/montana-senators-kill-bill-to-eliminate-recreational-marijuana-dispensaries-and-limit-thc-potency\/","title":{"rendered":"Montana Senators Kill Bill To Eliminate Recreational Marijuana Dispensaries And Limit THC Potency"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really nervous about undoing the people\u2019s will. That really concerns me.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

By Max Savage Levenson, Montana Free Press<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Thursday, one day after an impassioned hearing on\u00a0Senate Bill 546<\/a>, the Senate Business, Labor and Economic Affairs Committee voted 6-4 to table the bill.<\/p>\n

SB 546, sponsored by\u00a0Sen. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell<\/a>, would have dramatically altered and essentially dismantled the state\u2019s marijuana industry. It primarily\u00a0sought to eliminate all adult-use dispensaries in Montana<\/a>. Furthermore, it would have raised the state tax on medical marijuana from 4 percent to 20 percent and put significant limits on medical marijuana potency and allowable amounts for possession. While the bill prohibited non-medical marijuana sales, it did not re-criminalize marijuana possession for adults. It also halved the number of plants an adult can grow at home from two mature plants to one.<\/p>\n

On Thursday,\u00a0three Republican committee members\u2014<\/a>Senate President Jason Ellsworth, Committee Chair Jason Small and Sen. Walt Sales\u2014joined with all three Democratic members to oppose the bill<\/a>. The committee subsequently tabled the bill unanimously.<\/p>\n

During Wednesday\u2019s hearing and Thursday\u2019s committee meeting, proponents of the bill highlighted their concerns with marijuana potency and youth access.<\/p>\n

SB 546 would have lowered the allowable amount of the active compound THC from 35 percent to 10 percent in medical marijuana flower, and banned medical marijuana concentrates containing more than 10 percent THC.<\/p>\n

Dr. Kevin Sabet, co-founder and president of the national anti-marijuana organization Safe Approaches to Marijuana, expressed particular concern about the strength of marijuana concentrates, which often contain roughly 90 percent THC. Montana law does not currently include a cap on potency for marijuana concentrate products.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no need to have 90 percent potent marijuana products unless you\u2019re trying to addict kids,\u201d Sabet said. \u201cThat\u2019s simply the only reason to do it. Or addict people in the workplace and cause crashes on the road,\u201d he told the committee<\/p>\n

Opponents of the bill\u00a0emphasized that voters sent a message to lawmakers<\/a>\u00a0in 2020 when they\u00a0passed the legalization initiative I-190 by a margin of 57-43<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really nervous about undoing the people\u2019s will. That really concerns me,\u201d\u00a0Sen. Willis Curdy, D-Missoula<\/a>, said during Thursday\u2019s committee meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think it\u2019s good not to make voters think that their voice doesn\u2019t count. Then they really turn away from this whole process,\u201d Kate Cholewa of the Montana Cannabis Industry Association said during Wednesday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n

Regier acknowledged that concern during his opening remarks on the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been several examples of the will of the voters being reversed,\u201d he noted. Two of the three examples he cited involved voter initiatives being overturned by courts, not lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Opponents additionally argued that SB 546 would have eliminated hundreds of industry jobs, enabled an illicit market and denied the state millions of dollars in tax revenue.<\/p>\n

During Thursday\u2019s vote, committee chairman Small acknowledged that he supports parts of the bill, but said it presents too heavy a lift this late in the session.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some good stuff in here, but it would take a considerable amount of time to get this thing whipped into shape. We can take some of these ideas and still be able to move them along,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Montana Free Press at montanafreepress.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Kentucky Governor Signs Medical Marijuana Legalization Bill Into Law<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

The post Montana Senators Kill Bill To Eliminate Recreational Marijuana Dispensaries And Limit THC Potency<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\nRead More: Montana Senators Kill Bill To Eliminate Recreational Marijuana Dispensaries And Limit THC Potency<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m really nervous about undoing the people\u2019s will. That really concerns me.\u201d By Max Savage Levenson, Montana Free Press On Thursday, one day after an impassioned hearing on\u00a0Senate Bill 546, the Senate Business, Labor and Economic Affairs Committee voted 6-4 to table the bill. SB 546, sponsored by\u00a0Sen. Keith Regier,Continue 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\/63309"}],"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=63309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63310,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63309\/revisions\/63310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}