There is no doubt that you will get many states looking to set up systems and regulations to help with marijuana regulation. This seems to be the process now in Montana. The state’s health department has drafted a proposal for medical marijuana. The proposal contains all the important regulations that are important for making medical marijuana use possible. The proposal will also outline the rules for quality testing, fees, and tracking the use of this medical marijuana.
It is expected that the public hearing of the proposal is likely to be set up soon. This is important so that the residents can have an easy time learning more about the regulations and giving their opinions about it.
The state health department before coming up with the regulations had to contact various experts for their advice. It also had to research more in medical marijuana in states that have already legalized marijuana. It can be great to learn from the mistakes of other states to make the regulations better to serve the people once medical marijuana is legalized.
As expected, there is the need to set up a regulator that would oversee the whole system of implementing medical marijuana. The products released on the market have to be of good quality and fit for human consumption. The products would also be tested for the THC levels alongside the metals and pesticides.
The licensing fees also had to be included in the proposal. It is estimated that the annual fees for the licenses will start from $5,00 for the providers who have more than 10 registered plants. $1,000 will be the licensing fees for the smaller providers and $2,000 for the testing labs. Well, as for the patient fee, it would likely be raised from $5 to $30.
When it comes to the testing part, it would be carried out using specific guidelines and equipment. The work of the testing is to help identify if any four types of heavy metals are in the products. It is not just the heavy metals, they would also be testing for 15 solvents and 59 pesticides, microbes, and many other things. It seems like the medical marijuana has to meet several standards before being used. The health department of the state has also highlighted the various levels of various compounds of the marijuana products. If certain levels are exceeded, then the products would be rejected.
There is also the addition of a tracking system to the regulatory law. This is something that has made more people happier with the proposal. The tracking system will be important when it comes to the inventory tracking of the medical marijuana in the state. It is expected that on each day, the providers in the state will have to log the information on the sales, disposed water, and ongoing harvest weights. It would be possible to now track the marijuana from when it is just seeds to sales and use.
The lawmakers in the state have set an effective date of April 30, 2018 for several provisions such as testing and tracking. If the department has the systems ready, then it would be implemented even sooner than expected. With the process of rule-making taking some time, it should be possible that some effective dates would be affected. The current law requires that there is a notice of two months for such an industry before any new rules can be enforced.
More laws have to be created to help in managing the marijuana industry. Such laws include the type of permits that can be issued for those working for the providers and many others. Some were suggesting that a person who has been before convicted of a drug offense should not be given medical marijuana employee permit. Well, you would not want to reintroduce such a person to the drugs again. The rules also had something to do the daily logs as a provider. The logs will contain information about the visitor activity who accessed the limited access areas. Such areas would be where marijuana is grown, cultivated, weighed, stored, sold, packaged or processed further. It looks like the department will want every ounce of marijuana accounted for at all times.
It is expected that the medical marijuana groups in the state would lend commentary on these new laws. It is through their input that the laws can be perfected. The co-founder of the Patients Right Network, Kari Boiter, was the first to respond. She said her concern was with the cost the medical marijuana would be offered to the patients. For many states that have legalized medical marijuana were seeing patients as cash cows. That is where the problem is and it is time to change that. The rules in Montana propose that fees should be increased. The additional fee would affect the affordability of the products for the patients.
