The state health department has reduced the fee it charges to obtain or renew a medical marijuana card from $75 a year to $5.

Department of Public Health and Human Services spokesman Jon Ebelt says the old fee brought in more money than was needed to operate the registry. The Billings Gazette reports the lower fee went into effect on Saturday.

Montana had about 13,000 medical marijuana cardholders in June, down from a high of about 30,000 in 2011.

Beginning on Aug. 31, Montana medical marijuana caregivers will be limited to three patients.

The Supreme Court won’t hear an appeal challenging a Montana law that limits medical marijuana providers to selling the drug to a maximum of three patients each.

The justices on Monday let stand a Montana Supreme Court ruling that upheld key provisions of a state law that rolled back much of the 2004 voter-approved initiative legalizing medicinal marijuana.
The Montana Cannabis Industry Association said the rollbacks would force the closure of dispensaries and leave patients without a legal way to obtain the drug.

The new restrictions are set to take effect Aug. 31.

The Montana Cannabis Industry Association is asking a district judge to further delay enforcement of stringent new medicinal marijuana restrictions that are to go into effect Aug. 31.

The association on Tuesday filed a motion with Montana's 1st Judicial District Court in Helena for a stay until the U.S. Supreme Court takes action on an appeal or until the November election, when a proposed initiative expanding access to medicinal marijuana could be decided by Montana voters. Backers say they have collected more than the 24,175 signatures needed to place the measure on the ballot, pending certification by elections officials.

Someday you or someone you love may need safe, legal access to medical marijuana. You, or they, may have cancer, epilepsy, irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, or Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s, breast cancer, a recent heart attack, or may be a veteran or emergency worker with post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2004, 64 percent of Montana voters passed a law creating a medical marijuana program, but access for patients seeking relief will soon disappear because of political nonsense in the 2011 Legislature. With these draconian, nonsensical laws, you and your loved ones aren’t going to get what you need for pain, symptom relief or a cure.

In 2004, a majority of Montana voters approved Initiative 148, creating a medical marijuana program. 

But in 2011 the Montana Legislature repealed the initiative after the rampant expansion see throughout the state.

Initiative 182 aims to create an accountable medical marijuana program and in turn, assist the 12,000 Montana patients who will lose access August 31 following the spring Montana Supreme Court ruling to uphold the 2011 repeal.

Organizers claim to have secured 30,000 signatures, more than the required amount to get it on the November ballot.

Marijuana legalization has been growing like a weed for the past two decades, but 2016 could prove to be its most monumental year yet. Although marijuana has gained 24 state approvals for medicinal use, and four states have legalized its recreational use, we could see up to 12 separate approvals for the currently illicit drug in November.

This expansion is especially important because current President Barack Obama has suggested that the best way to get the attention of Congress is to continue legalizing the drug at the state level. Doing so would eventually force lawmakers to reconsider the federal government's current Schedule 1 stance on the drug.

Six states that allow marijuana use legal tests to determine driving while impaired by the drug that have no scientific basis, according to a study by the nation's largest automobile club that calls for scrapping those laws.

The study commissioned by AAA's safety foundation said it's not possible to set a blood-test threshold for THC, the chemical in marijuana that makes people high, that can reliably determine impairment.

Yet the laws in five of the six states automatically presume a driver guilty if that person tests higher than the limit, and not guilty if it's lower.

As a result, drivers who are unsafe may be going free while others may be wrongly convicted, the foundation said.

The Montana Supreme Court Monday delayed until Aug. 31 the effective date of medical-marijuana restrictions that it declared constitutional in February.

A majority of the court agreed with marijuana industry claims that imposing the restrictions immediately would cause “serious disruption” to a program that’s been operating now for almost five years under less-restrictive rules.

But the court rejected a request by the industry – and the Bullock administration – to delay the restrictions until 2017, to give the next Legislature a chance to modify them.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday passed an amendment that would let Veterans Affairs doctors discuss and recommend marijuana as a potential medical treatment in states where it is legal.

An addition to the fiscal 2017 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies appropriations bill, the bipartisan amendment sponsored by Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, would let VA doctors discuss marijuana as a potential medical treatment, similar to the allowances given civilian physicians in medical marijuana states.

The move marks the second time senators have tried to improve access to medical marijuana for veterans who are treated at VA medical facilities and want to use marijuana for medical purposes.

One of my best friends lives in Montana, and has for several years now. He was born and raised in Oregon, but after getting out of the military and reconnecting with his grandparents, he decided to move to Missoula. He was a frequent cannabis consumer and had been for quite sometime prior to moving to Montana. His mom grew hands down some of the best cannabis I’ve ever consumed, and that was way before cannabis was as mainstream as it is now. So when he moved to Montana and I asked him for his opinion on the cannabis scene there, I knew I’d get an educated opinion.