Montana lawmakers heard several key marijuana bills this week, from maintaining the existing footprint of dispensaries to changing how customers are taxed at the till.
The Montana Cannabis Control Division worked with an interim legislative committee over the last year and a half to both clean up the relatively new regulatory framework and communicate with marijuana providers about the industry's hurdles.
Montana passed marijuana legalization in 2020 and the market came into effect in 2022 after lawmakers set out what essentially became the first draft of regulations. The Legislature has continued to fiddle with those those levers in the succeeding sessions as the market matures.
On Friday, Sen. Josh Kassmier, R-Fort Benton, introduced two of those bills. One is a regulatory "cleanup" bill that would streamline the commercial leasing process for providers and standardize how taxes are applied on the sale of marijuana products. Montana leverages a 20% tax on recreational marijuana and 4% tax on medicinal products. Many local jurisdictions, either counties or cities, have elected to place additional taxes on marijuana sales.
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