Fat Hippie's products are now available to any medical marijuana cardholder after they were "untethered" from their provider June 2.
Fat Hippie Manager Jennifer Kinsey looks through the patient card website. She will be welcoming customers to the dispensary's new location across the street in the old Rocky Mountain Adventure Gear building in July.
SEELEY LAKE - The Fat Hippie Dispensary noticed new faces come into the store after the start of June. The recent influx of non-regulars could be tied to a new state law that allows medical marijuana cardholders to freely choose where to purchase their medicine.
"Patients deserve to be free to shop to meet their needs and we are excited that is finally going to happen," said owner Terry Lucke. "It opens up a lot of possibilities for people to shop wherever they want, whenever they want."
In 2019, the Montana State Legislature passed Senate Bill 265, which required the state to allow patients to become "untethered" from their providers. Medical cardholders can now visit any legal dispensary in the state as of June 2. Before they were required to buy from a single provider, though patients are still limited to five ounces a month.
The change means that Fat Hippie can start selling to nonlocals. According to manager Jennifer Kinsey, several out of town customers have come in to buy just two days after the untethering.
"Somewhere like Seeley Lake they can be traveling through to a different part of the state, or on vacation, and they can still have access to their medicine," Lucke said.
The legislation is a part of a larger push to change regulations around medical marijuana to place more responsibility on growers and dispensaries. One new policy Lucke and other providers must follow is recording the amount of marijuana used by an individual user from store to store through a statewide tracking system called METRC.
Lucke explained that the new changes bring his shop into uncharted waters. Not only does the company have to track all THC purchases, but it also has to record every ounce of marijuana grown in their greenhouses as a part of commercial tracking.
"We don't really know [if there is going to be difficulty] yet," Lucke said. "Ultimately the responsibility falls on us, we are trying to do the best we can."
For most providers, the change in regulation means competition between dispensaries will be at the highest in Montana history. According to a Montana Department of Public Health and Health Services' April 2020 report, there are 235 recognized providers to supply over 33,000 cardholders. Larger cities, like Missoula, have a dozen or more providers.
Lucke, however, is the only provider in the Seeley Lake area. He is also the only dispensary for the north-central Montana town of Fort Benton where he opened a shop in March 2020.
"It's another small town, which is what I like to put myself into. A lot of these small places are underserved and people would have to drive a lot, especially in the wintertime," Lucke said. "Try to fill a need."
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