The nation may not know who is president on election day, but the people have spoken when it comes to cannabis legislation. Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota have all legalized marijuana for adults 21 and older, as voters in each state approved their respective ballot initiatives at the ballot box. The Garden State has gone green as the closely watched state of New Jersey approved adult-use cannabis.

The former owner of Montana Buds, a statewide medical marijuana dispensary network, was sentenced Thursday to 18 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to a drug charge.

Charlton Victor Campbell was sentenced by Chief District Court Judge Dana Christensen in U.S. District Court in Missoula. Following his incarceration, he will be under supervised release for an additional five years.

In March, Campbell pleaded guilty to a federal charge of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana after signing a plea agreement with federal prosecutors that dismissed three other charges.

Under the agreement, Campbell also forfeited $30,000 in cash and gave up the Montana Buds properties in Bozeman to the federal government.

State revenue officials are working on the roll-out of the latest medical marijuana program with a tax on the drug — the first of its kind in the state — which could increase the agency's capacity for handling cash.

Legislators passed SB333 this spring, adding a number of regulations to the program. That includes a gross sales tax that providers will start putting on the books on July 1.

The tax will be 4 percent of gross sales from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018. After that the tax will be 2 percent.

The board chairman of the McLaughlin Research Institute floated an idea by lawmakers wrestling with medical marijuana legislation this session to have the facility be part of a program to test cannabis products.

In a March 15 email to some Great Falls legislators, Randy Gray said MRI could contract with the state Department of Public Health and Human Services to test the products and research cannabis addictive properties and ways to control them.

“The result would be efficient for Montana, effective for users of medical marijuana and helpful to stabilize and expand MRI’s science staff,” Gray states in his email that includes Democratic Rep. Tom Jacobson and GOP Sens. Brian Hoven and Ed Buttrey.

A Helena legislator introduced a bill Thursday that would create a committee to study the effects of legalizing recreational marijuana in Montana for presentation to the 2019 Legislature.

House Joint Resolution 35, introduced by Rep. Mary Dunwell, D-Helena, would request the legislative committee which oversees interim committees to form one to “examine the legalization, regulation, taxation, and public health and safety aspects of recreational marijuana in Montana.”

The Montana Supreme Court declined to step into the criminal case of a Montana medical marijuana patient who is challenging the possession limit statute.

The case of 65-year-old Wayne Steven Penning, who faces a felony count of criminal possession of dangerous drugs with intent to distribute, is still pending in Yellowstone County District Court.

In January, Penning had asked the Supreme Court to take over the case to consider his request to dismiss the charge. He argued that the medical marijuana statute, which limits cardholders to possession of one ounce of "usable" marijuana, is too vague. 

Penning was arrested for exceeding that limit in 2015 when a Montana Highway Patrol trooper stopped him with harvested marijuana from four of his plants. 

Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the medical cannabis patient advocacy group, recently released its annual report assigning letter grades to states based on the proficiency of their medical cannabis programs. The good news: 39 states improved their medical cannabis laws last year. The bad news: Six states have yet to legalize any form of medical cannabis, including CBD products, and many others still struggle with restrictive laws, limited access or daunting prices.

A medical marijuana patient is asking the Montana Supreme Court to rule whether the state can prosecute him and other patients for possessing more than one ounce of marijuana, even if the plant is not yet dry.

Steven Penning filed the request earlier this month after District Judge Rod Souza denied his motion to dismiss a marijuana possession charge. Penning argued that the marijuana plants he had grown and harvested in October 2015 were not usable because they were not yet dry, The Billings Gazette reported.

State law defines usable marijuana, in part, as the dried leaves and flowers of the marijuana plant.