Kate Cholewa: Marijuana revenue and policy must be separated

Look, there was something funky about a marijuana legalization initiative funded primarily by conservation interests. If the 2020 initiative, I-190, had simply legalized marijuana and said the tax goes here and here, that’s one thing — a problematic thing because initiatives can’t appropriate money, but still, one thing. Another thing the initiative did was actively regulate the new marijuana market.

Conservation groups bankrolled an initiative to impose laws on an industry that had nothing to do with them. Although the I-190 campaign requested the regulation portion be drafted by the current industry, they changed key provisions that led to problems still playing out.

The I-190 spokesperson claimed (after the fact) that the initiative didn’t “appropriate” the money. It made “suggestions.” But those “suggestions” are now declared by conservation advocates to be the expressed Will of the People, asserting that each vote for legal marijuana was a vote for specific funding objectives.

Were those votes likewise for the specific regulatory structure in I-190? There has been no legislative outcry regarding those changes. Were they not, too, the expressed Will of the People?

We are not dealing with issues of principle, rather politics and money, and the entangling of marijuana policy with dispersion of marijuana tax revenue is untenable and unfair.

The cannabis industry has stayed out of the where-the-revenue-goes conversation. The same cannot be said for conservationists staying out of policy and cannabis regulatory legislation.

Since the initiative’s passage, there have been struggles in both the 2021 and 2023 legislative sessions that had to do with proper, needed regulations for the cannabis industry being jeopardized by the interests of the conservation lobby. Their concern about regulatory bills turning into revenue bills has contributed to regulatory bills going sideways. The conservation lobby cannot be blamed for working to protect their interests (money). But it’s for precisely that reason the earmarking of the marijuana tax revenue to directly fund these specific interests must go. The situation is no more fair than if midwives’ scope of practice was jeopardized because the lodging tax was diverted to a new concern.

Failed legislation, HB 669, carried by Rep. Bill Mercer of Billings addressed this issue. It dumped marijuana revenue into the general fund and appropriated some of it to conservation interests. The main point being, now the money was appropriated from the general fund, thereby severing any need for conservationists to involve themselves in cannabis regulation legislation.

Brewers, tobacco, vehicle rentals — they don’t need to worry about their regulations being tampered with because the tax dollars they generate get directed toward one interest over another. Nor should they. Nor should the state cannabis industry have their statutory infrastructure driven by whether or not the tax dollars purchases generate go to where specific political interests want them to.

Rural roads, vets, and habitat protection are a-okay with me, personally. The professional association I lobby on behalf of, the Montana Cannabis Industry Association (MTCIA), has not take any positions on the distribution of the tax revenue that cannabis sales generate. The interference has been one-way. But the interference has created the need for the revenue to go into the general fund and get distributed from there, distributed to what the Legislature agrees is the best way to invest in Montana, such as the investments outlined in vetoed SB 442 and supported by conservationists.

However, consistently ignored is the language in current law that states the marijuana tax must “provide compensation for economic and social costs of marijuana.”

There’s not a single proposed expenditure that isn’t questionable.

But the fledgling industry can no longer risk losing needed regulations and sideboards every time the dollars get shuffled. Let those legislators who are willing to lend their time and expertise to managing a market exercise their skills. Let those interested in getting a piece of the revenue pie fight it out in the appropriations mosh pit. The disconnect is needed.