Montana Senate OKs Medical Marijuana Repeal

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Photo: Montana Legislature
Sen. Rowlie Hutton (R-Helena): This moron believes that God wants him to take medical marijuana away from patients. “Sometimes the most compassionate answer you can give is no, you don’t need this,” Hutton, a pastor, said of medical marijuana.

​The Montana Senate voted 29-21 on Thursday to repeal Montana’s medical marijuana law after an emotional debate marked by angry finger-pointing by senators from both sides.

After debating for more than an hour, the Senate finally gave preliminary approval to House Bill 161, by Speaker Mike Milburn (R-Cascade), to repeal the state’s medical marijuana law on July 1, reports Charles S. Johnson at the Helena Independent Record. The Senate will take a final vote on the bill Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, the Senate voted 36-14 to send SB 423, which would repeal and overhaul the medical marijuana law, to the House floor after it had stalled in the Senate on Wednesday. Because it missed a key deadline, SB 423 will now require a two-thirds majority in the House to s suspend the bil..
Montana’s medical marijuana law was approved by an overwhelming 62 percent of state voters in 2004.
Milburn said he was asking the House GOP to suspend the rules and take up SB 423 as a second option to the outright repeal bill, which he prefers.
During the debate on HB 161, Sen. Rowlie Hutton (R-Havre) claimed that, as a pastor, he has been asked to participate in “interventions” for people “addicted to marijuana.” He called for making medical marijuana illegal again.

“This is completely out of control up and down the Hi-Line,” Hutton claimed. “Sometimes the most compassionate answer you can give is no, you don’t need this.”
I invite all the suffering cancer patients, HIV patients, MS patients, hepatitis C patients, and other seriously ill Montanans to let Sen. Hutton know what you think of his ignorance when he appoints himself a doctor and says “No, you don’t need this.”
You can call Hutton’s Senate office at (406) 444-4800 or his home office at (406) 945-0256, or you can email him at [email protected], according to the Montana Legislature website.
Maybe you shouldn’t even bother trying to exercise logic on Hutton; this moron believes he has a hotline to God.
Sen. Hutton isn’t too concerned about the pain and suffering he inflicts on Montana patients. In fact, he has already resigned his state Senate seat, having accepted a job as pastor of a church in Omaha, Nebraska. This seems particularly irresponsible, since it was only last November that the lackadaisical Hutton was elected to a four-year term.

Eliza Wiley/The Independent Record
Sen. Ron Erickson (D-Missoula): “What they are begging us is to be allowed to live because this herb has helped them”

​Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Erickson (D-Missoula) stuck up for medical marijuana patients, urging senators to re-read all the emails they’ve been receiving from Montanans on the issue.
“Over and over and over, people were in terrible shape in their lives until 20095, 2006, 2009, 2010, whenever they began to use medical marijuana,” Erickson said. “What they are begging us to be allowed to live because this herb has helped them.”
Sen. Dave Wanzenreid (D-Missoula) took offense to tasteless comments characterizing medical marijuana users as people “running with the wrong crowd.”
“How dare you say that!” Wanzenreid shouted. “For people that have (multiple sclerosis), Lou Gehrig’s disease and a whole host of other maladies that have chosen not to be addicted to narcotics, that’s the wrong crowd? But no, we have a pharmaceutical industry that can market that. We said that’s OK.”
Sen. Kim Gillan (D-Billings) said she was tired of being lectured about drug abuse in schools, and said she hopes lawmakers will concentrate on other needs in schools, a reference to school funding and her anti-bullying bill.
“So spare me the lectures,” she said. “I don’t need them.”
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