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A motion to dismiss a medical marijuana lawsuit against the city of Great Falls has been denied.

A non-profit patient advocacy group and three medical marijuana patients filed the lawsuit, which aims to prevent the city from enforcing a medical marijuana ban. Now that the motion has been denied, both sides say they are moving forward.

City attorney Jim Santoro said, "We're going to have to now prepare and move forward in our procedures. Our next procedural move is to file the answer. We will be providing the answer."

Carl Jensen, the attorney for the plaintiffs, noted, "Well, we're just going to have to wait until they respond and we'll finally get our hearing. Hopefully we'll have it soon."

The city has until August 16th to file an answer to the motion; Santoro says he is drafting the answer now and expects to file it next week.

(June 24, 2010) The city of Great Falls is prepared to go to court to defend its decision to ban medical marijuana businesses.

A small group of medical marijuana patients aims to preserve the rights of sick people by filing a lawsuit against the city. The lawsuit was filed by a group called Montanans For Responsible Legislation.

City Attorney Jim Santoro says patients are still allowed to grow their own marijuana and the city's new regulation does not violate state law, noting, "Do we think there's substance to this lawsuit? No, we don't think there's substance to this lawsuit. We will defend it and we will defend it to its fullest."

Santoro says the group filed an injunction to keep the ban from going into effect on July 1st, but added that it will be weeks before the suit is taken up in court and the ban will move forward as scheduled.

Here is a summary of the lawsuit; click here to read the complete document (PDF):

The City of Great Falls has exercised its power in a manner that is inconsistent with state law when it enacted a citywide ban on medical marijuana on June 1, 2010. The actions of the city directly conflict with the rights of patients to grow their six plants as allowed by law, access marijuana and obtain marijuana from their caregiver as authorized by state law. The City of Great Falls should be prevented from restricting medical marijuana patients from growing their marijuana. The City of Great Falls does not have the authority to ban caregivers from growing or providing medication to their clients, not does the city have the ability to ban commercial caregivers. The plaintiffs request an injunction to prevent the city from engaging in these unlawful restrictions and enjoining them from taking any action against patients and caregivers in the City of Great Falls, because to do so would do irreparable damage to the plaintiffs.

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