One warrant provided by Big Sky Patient Care in Bozeman directed agents to seize items such as marijuana, drug paraphernalia, cell phones and computers "that are evidence of the commission of drug trafficking offenses."

"This smacks of officials, whether law enforcement or hostile local public officials, not getting their way and sidestepping the democratic process to shut down legitimate providers," said Kris Hermes, spokesman for Americans for Safe Access.

He criticized federal agents for pursuing cases against medical marijuana providers despite Attorney General Eric Holder's memo of October 2009 that termed prosecution of people legitimately using medical marijuana "unlikely to be an efficient use of limited federal resources." The number of medical marijuana cardholders in Montana nearly quadrupled in the 16 months after the memo was issued.

The memo specified that it does not apply to businesses that break state law. Since that federal memo was issued, more than 50 businesses have been raided in states with flourishing legal medical marijuana markets - California, Colorado, Nevada and Michigan, and now Montana, Hermes said.

Daubert said the raids could only hurt efforts to tweak Montana's marijuana law, which even many medical marijuana advocates term so vague as to have allowed for abuse.