A six month moritorium has been placed on all medical marijuana activity within the city of Lewistown, limiting licensing and distribution of the herb. 

The commisioners, unanimously passing this emergency ordinance, are using this time to research how other Montana communities have integrated medical marijuana into both their social and business structure.

Although the State of Montana has legalized the use of marijuana in specific medical cases, the Federal Government still holds the herb to an illegal status. This creates somewhat of a confusing predicament for state and local officials when it comes to creating ordinances and regulations making marijuana cultivation a legitimate and accepted business.

Kevin Myhre, Lewistown City Commissioner, notes that if an individual is growing and distributing marijuana under the new legality of this practice, one should operate under a business license, and “jump though the same hoops as everyone else” that runs a valid business in the City.

This can be complicated though, as Myhre points out, because practitioners now operate under somewhat of a “veil of secrecy”. Negative preconceived perceptions of marijuana use and cultivation also come to play, as those individuals legitimately using and growing comment on the discrimination they encounter while trying to move forward through old cultural stigmas attached to the use of marijuana.

In 2004, Montana passed laws allowing for medical marijuana use, and now each town in the state asks the same questions that Lewistown poses. How to transition this once illegal drug into an accepted valid status within the business and social community, has yet to be resolved.

The Lewistown Commissioners are looking at the options of creating a different type of zoning or licensing for medical marijuana care-givers, but are still in the infant stage of investigation, and it is no doubt that this new development of what is and isn’t considered medicine will be noted in Lewistown's history.