Pubdate: Thu, 28 Apr 2011
Source: Bangor Daily News (ME)
Copyright: 2011 Bangor Daily News Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/MWLhV21W
Website: http://www.bangordailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/40
Bookmark: http://www.drugsense.org/cms/geoview/n-us-me (Maine)

PREPARING FOR POT

Given the ease with which Mainers can get new laws proposed via the 
referendum process, it's just a matter of time before the state 
debates and then votes on a proposal to legalize marijuana for 
recreational use by adults.

If the vote were taken this year or next, it's a safe bet that 
legalization would be defeated. Exhibit A in that prediction is the 
defeat last year in California of a ballot measure that would have 
legalized the drug. But with each passing year, there are more voting 
age adults who see marijuana as a relatively harmless substance. 
Someday in the near future, that will translate into a voting majority.

Problems could come, then, if a citizen initiative gets on the ballot 
with an attached law that is laced with unsavory details. That was 
the case in California, according to Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, 
who has proposed legalizing marijuana for recreational use by adults 
here in Maine. Rep. Russell's bill, LD 1453, also would tax the sale 
of marijuana at 7 percent.

Specifically, LD 1453 would legalize "the personal use and 
cultivation of marijuana, legalizing and licensing certain commercial 
marijuana-related activities, while providing provisions to protect 
minors, employers and schools, and removing the registry system from 
the Maine Medical Marijuana Act."

The proposal is likely to be quickly dispatched as an "ought not to 
pass" at the committee level, but Rep. Russell's idea might initiate 
a grown-up discussion about a plant that, by some estimates, is the 
state's biggest cash crop.

Dealing with marijuana -- or not dealing with it -- resembles state 
government's history with casino gambling. Legislators and governors 
failed to step up to the plate years ago to craft a template to 
regulate the activity for fear of being seen as endorsing it. Yet had 
they done so, the tangled web of gambling facilities and proposed 
facilities in Bangor, Oxford, Biddeford, Lewiston and Calais might 
instead reflect a sensible, geographically logical plan.

It must be said that marijuana can be and is abused. Adults who use 
it regularly risk becoming -- to put it bluntly -- stupid and lazy. 
It should not be used by those under the age of 21.

But it also should be said that the plant is natural, it does not 
create a chemical dependency, it does not make people violent or 
cause them to have blackouts, and studies show its use has few 
long-term health consequences. And ironically, Maine's worst drug 
problem is the abuse of prescription painkillers, which were legally 
produced and distributed. Yet, state and federal authorities devote 
many more resources to marijuana and other illegal drugs than 
prescription medication abuse.

Mainers have twice endorsed at the ballot booth medical marijuana. It 
is not a stretch to believe voters may expand access to the plant in 
the near future. At the very least, lawmakers should be prepared to 
respond to this eventuality rather than responding after the fact.  
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake