“Wrong for Montana” Campaign Against Recreational Marijuana
Billings car dealer Stephen Zabawa has officially launched a campaign called “Wrong for Montana” to fight against I-190, which pushes for the legalization of the sale and possession of recreational marijuana by adults in Montana, and CI-118, which would set the minimum age to legally purchase and consume marijuana at 21. The ballot action committee draws from a broad base of support, including Smart Approaches to Marijuana Action (SAM Action), the Montana Contractors Association, and the Montana Family Foundation, and the American Academy of Medical Ethics (AAME).
Medical marijuana was first legalized in Montana in 2004 and then revised in 2011 as Senate Bill 423. SB 423 banned medical marijuana advertisements, limited dispensaries to three users, and required doctors who prescribe marijuana to more than 25 patients per year to undergo a state review. In 2012, an attempt to repeal the bill but was unsuccessful at the ballot box. In 2016, Montana Medical Marijuana Initiative, I-182, was approved by voters, which repealed several of SB 243’s requirements regarding the number of patients which medical marijuana providers could treat, allowed physicians to prescribe marijuana for patients diagnosed with chronic pain or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and repealed law enforcement’s power to conduct unannounced inspections of medical marijuana facilities.
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I was an active marijuana smoker as a teen and well into young adulthood.(now 58), with no regrets, but basically gave it up in the late 90s (law school), but never had a negative attitude about the right of others to so imbibe. Initially, as the legalize pot movement began, I warned those in support that legalization would end the more lenient aspects of unregulated pot, knowing as I did and do that this would only lead to heightened legal consequences; as in, up until now, you could face fed charges if you illegally sold one cigarette, while pot was still a low level sort of crime, and selling one joint was low on most any authorities radar, fed or not. Again, even then I did not much oppose the right of others to seek legalization, if people were comfortable with it (as described above), that was their business, not mine. That was a good 20+ years ago. More recently, I decided to relax things by giving up alcohol once and for all, and did opt to at least check out the new pot scene, as in, purchased a small amount from a friend in Missoula in late July, 2020. NOTE (1): It was packaged as medical pot, very clear language on the freeze dry packaging to the effect that it was not be sold in any other way and a serious crime to do anything other; I realized right away that whoever supplied that pot (to my friend) was engaging in overt abuse of the privileges he/she had been granted as a “medical” grower. This, in every sense, alerted me to the fact that like any other commercialized industry, bottom feeding corruption was already going on, which upsets me in context. NOTE (2): I also noticed the intensity by which this newest effort to further legal weed (beyond medical clearance) was being pushed (no pun intended) on virtually every corner in d/t Missoula this spring into summer, a clear indication that big $$$ is behind this effort versus so called advocates who actually value pot for what it is (was), and that the kids hired to represent those efforts were oblivious to any element of the reality, “I am only doing this for the money”, etc., which greatly bothered me. All of this said, and more importantly, this latest decision to test the waters, so to speak, created an even more disturbing realization. THE STUFF THEY ARE PRODUCING TODAY IS DANGEROUSLY POTENT, FOR MORE POTENT THEN THE BEST POT I EVER SMOKED AS A KID, SO MUCH STRONGER THAT WITHIN A SHORT TIME, I EXPERIENCED A DECIDEDLY NEGATIVE REACTION. DISORIENTATION ON A LEVEL THAT BASICALLY FREAKED ME OUT, COMMON LANDMARKS IN MY OWN ‘HOOD CONFUSED ME IF I SO MUCH AS WALKED TO THE CORNER COFFEE SHOP, AND OTHER EQUALLY UNNERVING EFFECTS THAT BY NOW HAVE ME STANDING IN RELATIVELY FIRM OPPOSITION TO WHAT’S GOING ON. As I said to a kidi just the other day, marijuana so readily available when it was illegal that it might as well have been legal, no real legal issues unless you really ask for it, that sort of thing. I have a couple other very stories in this context, I will save them for the moment.