During one of the first snowstorms of the season, D. Jones pulled his freshly showered hair into a ponytail and settled in to chat about marijuana. A Flathead County resident, Jones is 6 feet, 8 1/2 inches tall and all angles on a scarecrow frame.
Jones said he used to weigh 236 pounds, but today he’s down nearly 60 pounds and weighing in at 178. He doesn’t feel like eating a lot these days, because the pain drives off his appetite.
Jones, 57, said he suffered a chiropractic injury in 2006, compounding a surfing injury in his neck from his youth. The result has been a physical downward spiral that Jones said has confounded doctors and left him walking with a cane, neck muscle spasms, slurred speech at times, double vision, and trouble going to the bathroom, among other issues.
“My body for the last four years has just been freaking out,” Jones said.
Though he’s on narcotics to manage the pain, Jones said he found more relief through medical marijuana. It helps him eat and sleep, and even get back to some everyday activities that got left behind as the pain grew.
“I can medicate myself to where I might even want to cook a meal,” he said.
But medical marijuana has also become a source of stress in Jones’ life, as the state’s program continues to undergo changes and legal challenges. Initiative Referendum 124 (IR-124), which asks Montanans to affirm the latest version of the medical marijuana program outlined by the 2011 Legislature as Senate Bill 423, will have a definite effect on where the program heads in the future.
SB423 repealed the original voter-approved medical marijuana program and replaced it with a more stringent one with multiple provisions, including those that limit providers to three patients each and do not allow providers to take payment for their services.
Many of these changes were blocked in district court; then, in September, the Montana Supreme Court overturned the district court’s decision, which made it seem as though the new law would take full effect. But then on Oct. 26, the changes were blocked again in district court via temporary restraining order sought by medical marijuana activists. Judge James Reynolds issued the order, and will convene a Nov. 13 hearing on the case.
For people like Jones, the upheaval in the medical marijuana program causes significant anxiety about where medication will come from, and if the federal government will consider him a criminal.
In 2011, federal agents raided multiple medical marijuana businesses across the state, resulting in arrests, charges and convictions for many involved. Jones said the federal crackdown caused a local pain management center to drop its medical marijuana program out of fear, and it made it harder for patients to find providers.
“You can’t hardly find a provider unless you know someone,” Jones said.
Right now, Jones said he is a card-carrying, qualified medical marijuana patient. He has a provider, but even that is a hit-and-miss situation, he said. Jones’ friend and caregiver, Mona, said Jones is a different person when he has medical marijuana.
“That’s about the only thing that helps get him through the day,” she said. “When he has medical marijuana, he feels better, we interact better. When he doesn’t have it, it puts a lot of emotional stress on me.”
Had Judge Reynolds not issued the restraining order last Friday, the state Department of Public Health and Human Services would have sent out a letter on Oct. 29 to over 5,400 registered medical marijuana patients, informing them they no longer have a provider due to the three-patient limit rule.
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Flathead Valley resident D. Jones walks across the kitchen floor with the use of a cane. Jones is a proponent of the use of medical marijuana. – Lido Vizzutti | Flathead Beacon |
According to Roy Kemp of the Quality Assurance Division for DPHHS, those who received the letter might have had to drop off the registry or start growing their own pot.
To remain on the registry, they would have had to list a new provider or inform DPHHS about where they will manufacture and cultivate marijuana for their own use, according to the letter.
Bob Brigham, campaign manager for medical marijuana activist group Patients for Reform, Not Repeal, said the situation has been confusing for many patients because they just want to know where they stand.
It’s also confusing for voters, Brigham said, because they are deciding on two versions of the medical marijuana program that they’ve never before seen in practice.
The original program underwent changes at the Supreme Court level that will make it different than what Montanans experienced before, Brigham said, and a fully implemented SB423 would also be a new look for the program.
“It’s a choice between two things that Montanans haven’t seen before,” Brigham said last week.
From his perspective, Jones thinks the political game being played with medical marijuana is unfair to the patients who really need the drug. He readily admits that the original program had too many loopholes for people to slip through and reform is necessary, but the Legislature’s recent attempt to do so with SB423 went overboard.
Brigham said he believes lawmakers will take another look at the medical marijuana program in the upcoming session, regardless of the election outcome and the judge’s ruling.
“Nobody wants to have a Wild West,” Brigham said. “I think everyone’s hope is that the Legislature, regardless, will deal with it.”