Lights Out For Pot Grower's Dibs On Missoula Street

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The Montana Department of Transportation won't help grow pot plants after all.

Last week, the DOT took down light bulbs from the Orange Street Bridge. Then Rick Baker, a Billings veteran starting the Missoula Cannabis Co-op, asked department officials to donate the pricey bulbs to help grow marijuana for medical patients.

It's likely that no one told Baker to put the request in his pipe and smoke it. Still, it doesn't look like he's getting the lights. * Department director Jim Lynch heard the request by phone and said this after a pause: "Are you sure you don't have me on candid phone?"

An agency spokeswoman said Friday the agency doesn't have plans to donate the bulbs: "We'll put those bulbs to use. We're not sure where," said Charity Watt Levis. "We don't have any immediate plans, but they're definitely not something we're tossing away."

A crew removed the high-pressure sodium lights because they kept blowing out inside the bridge fixtures. At roughly $150 a pop, the lights were expensive to replace, so workers installed $5 fluorescents instead.

Baker, a medical marijuana caretaker and patient, was hoping the lights could help grow cannabis for patients. The Montana Medical Marijuana Act allows a patient and caregiver to keep up to six plants. Baker estimated the start-up costs to care for that many plants at between $600 and $1,100, and said the lights are a costly part of the package.

"The high-pressure sodium ones are the real killers," said Baker, 25.

This fall, Baker plans to move to Missoula to attend the University of Montana. He's looking for commercial space to open up the nonprofit co-op, which he'll model after the Yellowstone Medical Cannabis Foundation in Billings. In Montana, The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation Medical Clinics also operate in Missoula and Billings, according to its Web site.

Baker said the Missoula Cannabis Co-op's mission will be to help patients and caregivers. He'll help patients get their medical cards, medicine and pipes. He'll fill them in on the law, and he'll assist caretakers with some of the same.

He said he's considered 60 percent disabled and took up the cause after he tore his shoulder wrestling. Doctors mended it with seven screws, but they also prescribed drugs that hurt him.

"So I was taking a bunch of pills and it ended up, like, hurting my stomach," Baker said.

The drugs also landed him in a substance abuse program, and he wasn't alone. The infantryman had surgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he saw "all those soldiers coming back and getting addicted to those narcotics."

He said cannabis is a good alternative. While the Transportation Department isn't helping him out, Baker said Best Buy in Billings did. When the store redid its lights, the foundation scored around 50, he said. Growers see expenses add up, so the donations help. Even the electricity bills go up, and not just because of the high-powered bulbs.

"I play music for mine. I'm playing Marley right now," Baker said.


News Hawk: User: http://www.420magazine.com/
Source: Missoulian (MT)
Copyright: 2009 Missoulian
Contact: oped@missoulian.com
Website: Missoulian: News and Resources for Western Montana
Author: Keila Szpaller