HELENA — The Montana Senate gave initial approval Thursday to a bill that would redirect marijuana tax revenue from conservation programs toward treatment and law enforcement.
Senate Bill 307, from Senate Majority Leader Sen. Tom McGillvray, R-Billings, passed 30-20 on a preliminary vote, with all but two Republicans in support and all Democrats opposed.
(Watch the video for a closer look at where marijuana tax revenue could go.)
Currently, the first $6 million of marijuana tax revenue goes to behavioral health services and substance use treatment through the state’s HEART Fund. 20% of the remainder – about $10 million a year – goes to the Habitat Montana program, which funds wildlife habitat improvement programs. Another 12% – around $6 million – is divided between state parks, trails and recreational programs and a program for non-game wildlife.
SB 307 removes the wildlife and recreation allocations, increases the allocation to the HEART Fund and creates a new fund to pay for a marijuana law enforcement office under the Montana Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation. That office would be tasked with investigating the black market and prosecuting criminal violations of marijuana laws.
Initiative 190, the ballot measure that initially legalized recreational marijuana in Montana, called for tax revenue to go to these conservation programs – but a ballot measure isn’t legally allowed to appropriate money, and the Legislature adjusted the distribution as part of the 2021 bill that set up the structure for legal sales. A number of lawmakers said during Thursday’s debate that they had received extensive comments asking them not to remove funding that the public had voted for.
McGillvray said he always thought it was inappropriate for I-190 to include revenue distribution. He said there’s already enough funding for programs like Habitat Montana, and that the money from a tax on a specific product should be going toward the impacts of that product rather than something unrelated.
“I’m making a policy choice here,” he said.
Opponents of SB 307 said the bill was creating a false choice between funding conservation and responding to marijuana’s impacts. Sen. Sara Novak, D-Anaconda, said it was undermining the work the 2021 Legislature had done to set up the current funding structure.
“I don't disagree with the philosophy behind this; I do wholeheartedly think we need to take a hard look at prevention, education, treatment, the crime that goes along with all of that, and the whole trickle effect,” she said. “I just don't think that this bill is the way to go about doing that.”
Supporters of the bill said the state can find other ways to keep funding the affected programs.
“We need to move this bill along,” said Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson. “We still have time to look at our licensing fees and see where they're going to, and make sure that we can fund both things in Montana, because we do need to.”
SB 307 was extensively amended in committee, and senators adopted another amendment on the floor Thursday. McGillvray proposed the change, which narrowed the marijuana law enforcement office and left more of the tax revenue in the state general fund.
Gov. Greg Gianforte’s budget proposal also called for redirecting some marijuana revenue. At a news conference Thursday, Gianforte said he wouldn’t comment specifically on this proposal yet, but that he still wanted to see changes in revenue distribution.
“If we're going to make a Schedule I drug available to the people of Montana – that's what the people of Montana wanted, I didn't support it, but we're implementing their will – I think we should be using a significant portion of that revenue for addiction recovery and mental health issues, which is what we've prioritized,” he said.
SB 307 will go to the Senate Finance and Claims Committee, which reviews bills that affect state revenue, before being returned to the Senate for a final vote. If it passes that vote, it will go to the House for consideration.
