We’ve long wondered why states have been happy to disregard federal law on marijuana (we have always been in favor of legalization), but not use of other medicines and drugs.

A state that insisted on asserting its sovereignty to allow people to buy and sell any medical product they wish, with informed consent, would become a mecca for innovation and freedom and better health. Now Montana has taken the first step in that direction, with the country’s most expansive Right to Try law.

MIT Technology Review reports:

As of this week in Montana, any biotech company with an experimental drug has a clear path to selling it to consumers. Companies whose drugs have been through preliminary testing – sometimes in as few as 10 healthy people – can pay $12,500 to apply to a newly established review board for approval. Once its treatment is rubber-stamped, the company can set the price of the drug and sell it via experimental treatment clinics, the first of which is likely to be up and running around the end of this year.  

Montana’s latest right-to-try legislation is unique. While other jurisdictions with similar laws limit access to drugs to people with terminal illness, in Montana access is theoretically available to anyone who gives informed consent and can pay. That includes people desperate for treatments for rare diseases. It also includes those who are interested in longevity and want to try out drugs pitched as preventive therapies.

The state’s Department of Health and Human Services recently finalized rules to implement the law. The rules stipulate that patient consumers provide fully informed consent and that each application be reviewed by a board that includes a Montana-certified doctor, expert scientists, and an ethicist.

Let’s hope Florida, Texas, and Arizona are next.