"It's been brutal," Thomas said. "We were forced out of business, and we were trying to hang on until we could re-open. If we had to wait until June, we probably would have had to throw in the towel."

The Marijuana Company will accept the paperwork of any patient who wants to list the dispensary as his designated provider, but it will have to offer marijuana on a first-come, first-served basis until its supplies are replenished, he said.

The state health department did not oppose the advocacy group's effort to change the effective date through the courts, attorney Nicholas Domitrovich said.

"We have the program in place. We have the staff in place," Domitrovich said before the ruling. "We are prepared to act, but we feel we don't have the proper legal cover right now."

The health department immediately saw an increase in applications after the judge's ruling. The department received 70 medical marijuana cardholder and provider applications on Wednesday, spokesman Jon Ebelt said.

Another provision of the initiative, allowing people diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder to use medical marijuana, has already gone into effect and was not affected by Wednesday's ruling.

There were 7,558 enrolled medical marijuana patients in Montana in November, and 6,557 without a designated provider, according to health department statistics. There were more than 30,000 people enrolled before state lawmakers in 2011 passed the restrictive law, citing the need to close loopholes that allowed the medical marijuana law approved by voters in 2004 to be abused.

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