A petition drive for a ballot measure that would repeal the Montana Marijuana Act of 2004 and align state law with federal drug laws has been revved up in the Flathead Valley.

Steve Zabawa, the lead organizer behind the Initiative 174 effort and the “SafeMontana” campaign, was in Kalispell Thursday to help organize signature gathering with just one week to go before the June 20 deadline to get 24,175 signatures.

“We’re probably about halfway there,” said Zabawa, a Billings car dealer. “That’s pretty good. That’s mainly out of Billings.”

Zabawa asserts that seven out of 10 people who are approached for their signature provide it, an indication to him that there is dissatisfaction with the way the state has handled the medical marijuana issue.

The main goal of I-174, he said, is to prevent Montana from becoming the next Colorado, where the commercial sale of marijuana products has been legalized.

“I haven’t seen anything good come out of Colorado,” he said.

Currently, Montana’s stance on marijuana is in an ambiguous limbo.

Voters in 2004 approved the Montana Marijuana Act, authorizing the sale and use of marijuana for medical purposes.

There were only 1,000 medical marijuana cardholders in the state until 2008. Zabawa said that’s when the Obama administration signaled that the federal government wouldn’t take an aggressive approach to medical marijuana enforcement.

The number of card carriers surged to 30,000 in the state within a short time frame, and most of them were issued “to poeple who weren’t really sick,” said Zabawa, who supported the 2004 ballot measure.

“I voted for it 10 years ago, but it didn’t work out the way I thought it would,” he said, noting how dispensaries started showing up in storefronts all over Montana cities and towns.

That changed only after the federal government re-engaged in enforcement with a series of high-profile raids on dispensaries, said Zabawa, who contends that fear of future enforcement dried up the open-market dispensaries.

The Legislature also contributed to a partial demise of medical marijuana in 2011.

Senate Bill 423 put sideboards on Montana Marijuana Act, in part by requiring doctors who issue cards to be from Montana and limiting the number of cards they can issue. It also limited medical marijuana providers to  having just three patients, and it prohibited them from charging for the product.

But marijuana proponents took the new law to court, and most of its provisions have been blocked from taking effect until a Helena district judge rules on the case.

That leaves ambiguity for what could happen in the future, Zabawa said, and that’s what I-174 is intended to clarify.

If it gets on the ballot, the measure would make all drugs listed on the federal Schedule 1, including marijuana, illegal in Montana. People in need of marijuana for bona fide medical purposes would still be able to access it in forms that are allowed under federal law, such as an ingestible product called Marinol.

“What’s interesting about this is it’s not a Republican, Democrat thing. It’s a safety thing,” said Zabawa, who wants drug laws that will protect his seven children and future grandchildren.

Zabawa said that although there is just a week to gather signatures, the petition drive has become a statewide effort and he is optimistic the effort will be successful.

A person with a petition will be at the Flathead County Courthouse this week for those who want to provide their signatures. Or people can download a petition form from the SafeMontana website at: www.safemontana.com.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.