Montana Chiropractic DRUG Bill Heads to Senate Friday
Originally published: 2025-04-09
House Bill 929, widely known as the “Chiropractic Drug Bill,” has already passed the Montana House of Representatives and is now scheduled to be heard in the Senate on Friday morning, April 11, 2025. As the bill moves forward, chiropractors from across Montana and the United States are rising up to stop its passage—citing not only a fundamental betrayal of chiropractic principles, but also grave concerns over public health, malpractice liability, and political corruption.
What HB 929 Would Do
This bill would grant chiropractors the authority to prescribe drugs, including dangerous drugs like corticosteroids, muscle relaxers, NSAIDs etc. despite the fact that chiropractors receive no pharmacological training and are not licensed medical physicians. Proponents frame this as modernizing health care reform, but the truth is far more troubling.
Chiropractic malpractice insurers have already warned that malpractice rates would increase statewide, even for those chiropractors who choose not to prescribe, due to the legal and clinical risks associated with this expanded authority.
Worse still, the bill is being driven not by public health needs or evidence-based demand, but by a small, politically connected group of insiders using public regulatory power to push private agendas.
Regulatory Capture in Plain Sight
The Montana Board of Chiropractors, tasked with regulating and protecting the public, has become entangled in the very lobbying efforts that HB 929 represents. Consider the deep ethical and legal conflicts of interest among the bill’s most prominent supporters:
Dr. Julie Murack – Chair of the Montana Board of Chiropractors, a member of both the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) and the Montana Chiropractic Association (MCA), and a former member of the MCA’s ethics board.
Dr. Caitlin Walter – Board Member, current Vice President of the MCA, named MCA’s Chiropractor of the Year 2025, and Montana’s delegate to the ACA. On record supporting the Drug Bill.
Dr. Dustin Rising – Board Member, current MCA board member, sits on the MCA Membership Committee, and is also an ACA member. On record supporting the Drug Bill.
Dr. Michael Matury – Board Member with oversight power in this debate. On record supporting the Drug Bill.
These individuals are not neutral regulators—they are deeply embedded actors in a political strategy to transform the chiropractic profession into a medical model without the training, safeguards, or public support necessary to justify such a shift.
The Web of Political and Financial Influence
The conflicts don't end at the regulatory level:
Representative Greg Oblander, the sponsor of HB 929, was named MCA’s Chiropractor of the Year in 2024. He, and his unlicensed wife Jo, also practice an unregulated and unscientific form of energy healing called the “Emotion Code,” which is outside the legal scope of chiropractic practice in Montana.
Dr. Ryan Oblander, his son, is on the MCA board and recently purchased the chiropractic practice of Dr. Marcus Nynas.
Dr. Marcus Nynas is the former MCA president and now serves as the current president of the ACA, the national organization aggressively working to expand drug prescribing rights for chiropractors nationwide.
What we’re witnessing is not a broad coalition of stakeholders—it’s a small inner circle using professional associations, public offices, and legislative access to enrich themselves and advance their political goals.
Why Lawmakers Should Sound the Alarm
HB 929 is a direct violation of the principles Montanans claim to uphold:
It violates free market principles by leveraging government power to benefit a handful of politically connected insiders.
It enables regulatory abuse by allowing those who write the rules to simultaneously promote and benefit from them.
It opens the door to federal overreach by aligning Montana with the national ACA agenda, which seeks to tie Medicare reimbursement to state scope of practice—potentially introducing drug-prescribing chiropractors into federal Medicare programs nationwide.
This Is Not About Patients—It’s About Power
Let’s be clear: HB 929 is not about improving patient care. It’s about expanding influence, consolidating power, and manipulating the legislative process for professional and political gain.
It is everything Americans should reject: special-interest politics, unaccountable regulatory behavior, and legislation that puts ideology over evidence and power over patients.
We urge Montana Senators to vote NO on HB 929 and to stand for transparency, limited government, and the true conservative values they were elected to uphold.
CLICK Here for an email list of Monata State Senators
