Flagship Montana pot bill emerges from Senate committee
Arren Kimbel-Sannit
They may have just missed 4/20, by which point they had hoped to see House Bill 701 hit the floor, but a committee of Senate lawmakers succeeded Wednesday evening in passing a heavily amended version of a bill to implement and tax recreational marijuana in Montana, one of the final priorities of a legislative session nearing its close.
Among the many changes that the Senate Select Committee on Marijuana Laws made to the bill before passing it on a voice vote is to partially restore some funding in the bill for conservation and land easements allocations that existed in Ballot Initiative 190, a legalization proposal that voters approved last year, but that received pushback from Republicans who argued that only the Legislature has the right to make spending decisions, not the voters. The version of the flagship pot bill that emerged from committee Wednesday also allows for limited home-grow of marijuana,