HELENA — On Friday morning, a Montana legislative committee advanced a pair of bills on marijuana businesses, including one intended to again slow down the growth of new dispensaries in the state.
The Senate Business, Labor and Economic Affairs Committee voted to move forward Senate Bill 27, sponsored by Sen. Ken Bogner, R-Miles City, and Senate Joint Resolution 5, sponsored by Sen. Josh Kassmier, R-Fort Benton.
Since the start of legal marijuana sales, Montana has been operating under a moratorium, allowing only providers who had been licensed in the state’s medical marijuana system to join the recreational market. It was initially set to expire June 30, 2023, but the Legislature voted during its 2023 session to extend it through June 30, 2025.
SB 27 would allow new people to get licenses after the moratorium expires, regardless of whether they had previously been medical marijuana providers. However, for the next two years, they would be required to be “related to an existing licensed premise.” That would mean new owners could purchase existing businesses, but they couldn’t open a new dispensary, growing site or manufacturing facility.
Under SB 27, new licensed premises would be allowed starting July 1, 2027.
According to Gov. Greg Gianforte’s 2025 budget proposal, Montana currently has about 1,000 licensed premises. They projected that, if the moratorium expires and something like SB 27 isn’t in place, another 500 could open up.
SJR 5 calls on the U.S. Congress to pass the SAFER Banking Act, which would provide legal protection for banks that serve state-legal marijuana businesses.
“I know cash is very difficult to deal with, so that's why this is probably important,” Kassmier said. “We need to pass this so these businesses aren’t keeping cash on hand – maybe losing cash. This just makes the business cleaner, safer.”
Kate Cholewa, with the Montana Cannabis Industry Association, said some banks have been willing to work with Montana marijuana businesses, but it’s brought additional costs and federal scrutiny.
“The whole “SAFE Banking,” that language – it's often thought of as ‘safe banking for cannabis businesses,’ but it's really about safety for banks in banking,” she said.
Jen Hensley represents Fidelity Diagnostics Laboratory, one of only three licensed marijuana testing laboratories in the state. She said it’s extremely expensive to launch that type of operation.
“The lab industry in Montana is incredibly hard to get into, and that's the case for any state,” she said. “It's not because we need to weaken the regulations at the state level; it's because these businesses have no access to commercial lending.”
Sen. Steve Daines has been the lead Republican sponsor of the SAFER Banking Act for several years and continues to back it.
“Senator Daines believes every legal business should have access to financial institutions,” a spokesperson for his office said in a statement to MTN Friday. “It helps keep our communities safer, creates jobs and provides much-needed clarity for our law enforcement officers.”
Also on Friday, the Senate Business, Labor and Economic Affairs Committee heard testimony on Senate Bill 74, sponsored by Kassmier. Like SB 27 and SJR 5, SB 74 was proposed by the Economic Affairs Interim Committee, which worked on marijuana-related issues after the last legislative session.
SB 74 would make a number of mostly technical changes to the legal marijuana system. One of the most significant would be changing the requirements for how marijuana businesses calculate the taxes they pay. Currently, the law says they must pay taxes on the retail price of their products before applying any discounts or reductions – like discounts for veterans or customers over 65. SB 74 would change that to base the tax on the actual sale price.
Supporters of the change said the requirement made it hard for each business to implement and that it made more sense to ask owners to pay a tax based on what they actually bring in.
A budget analysis estimated that tax change could likely reduce state marijuana tax revenue by about 1% – about $550,000 to $600,000 each of the next four years.
SB 74 would also change license fees for producers of marijuana concentrates, from charging for each location they operate to charging based on how much they produce – likely lowering fees for several manufacturers that have multiple facilities.
Pepper Petersen, president and CEO of the Montana Cannabis Guild, urged lawmakers to support the bill. He said it took months of work by the interim committee, the industry and regulators to come up with it.
“I think that we should respect that work, and we should honor the commitment that they've made to making sure that Montana taxpayers are getting their fair share from this program that we've developed – and that ultimately we do no harm with this program, that we mitigate anything that may be potentially damaging to the public or to the industry or to the taxpayers,” he said.
