HELENA, Mont. -- A judge has ruled that Montana's medical marijuana law doesn't shield providers of the drug from federal prosecution.

Friday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy is a new blow to the reeling medical marijuana industry that has seen tougher state restrictions and a federal crackdown over the last year.

Molloy says medical marijuana providers can be prosecuted under the federal Controlled Substances Act even if they are following state law. Molloy cited the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause, which says that federal law prevails if there is any conflict between state and federal statutes.

The ruling comes in a civil lawsuit filed by several providers whose businesses were among more than two dozen raided by federal agents last year. The providers claim the raids were unconstitutional.

NBC Montana spoke with a former medical marijuana provider who said he feels the ruling violates the Bill of Rights.

"My understanding of the Tenth Amendment is that anything that's not specifically given to the federal government by the Constitution, resides with the states," Bryan Spellman said.

But State Representative Diane Sands (D) disagrees.

"There is nothing the citizens of Montana can do -- either through the legislature, through a Constitutional amendment, through court rulings or initiatives -- to change the fact that federal law trumps state law, absolutely and totally," she said.

Sands says she does support medical marijuana use, but that it needs to be legalized by the federal government and taken off the list of Schedule I drugs. She says that way it could be regulated by the states.