HELENA – A ballot measure to legalize marijuana for recreational use in Montana is expected in 2020, so state lawmakers should prepare by creating an interim committee to study the issue, a Missoula state senator said Friday.
“I fully expect that legalization will be on the 2020 ballot by a citizen initiative,” Sen. Diane Sands (D-Missoula) told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “So, I ask us to get a running start in understanding how legalization has worked in the other states where it is currently legal.”
Sands asked the Judiciary Committee to approve her Senate Joint Resolution 11, which directs the Legislature to create an interim committee of lawmakers to study marijuana legalization, starting this summer.
The panel would study the “regulation, taxation and public health and safety aspects” of recreational marijuana use in Montana and report back to the 2021 Legislature.
The Judiciary Committee took no immediate action on the resolution. Sands said she’s not arguing for or against marijuana legalization, and that neither would the study committee.
“There are many valid positive arguments for legalization and many valid arguments against legalization,” she said. “(This committee) is simply to prepare for the fact that, should it become legal, we in the Legislature will have to adopt many kinds of laws that will have to implement that.”