Lawmakers in the Maine state Legislature have overruled a veto by Republican Gov. Paul LePage that would have otherwise stalled the start of legal recreational marijuana sales in accordance with a 2016 voter-approved ballot measure.
The Maine state House and Senate voted Wednesday to overrule Mr. LePage’s veto of a regulatory marijuana bill by margins of 109-39 and 28-6, respectively, easily garnering the two-thirds support needed to nullify his opposition.
Once implemented, the bill will establish a framework for licensing, taxing and tracking retail recreational marijuana sales, effectively opening the door for Maine to join the handful of states that permit non-medical cannabis dispensaries.
Mainers voters in November 2016 to legalize recreational marijuana and implement rules governing retail sales, and consequently adults there can currently grow and posses limited amounts of pot. Mr. LePage twice vetoed regulatory bills that would have kick-started the state’s commercial cannabis market, however, stymieing efforts to fully implement the ballot measure.
In 2017, Mr. LePage vetoed a bill passed by lawmakers that would have put Maine on the path to permitting recreational marijuana sales, citing concerns with longstanding federal law prohibiting the plant. More recently, he vetoed a second regulatory bill approved by lawmakers last month in part he said it wouldn’t combine the state’s existing medical and recreational marijuana programs, according to the governor’s office.
“No branch of government has a monopoly on a good idea; if Maine is going to legalize and regulate marijuana, it will require our joint efforts to get this important issue right,” Mr. LePage said in a statement issued last week explaining his veto.
The bill that survived Mr. LePage’s second veto establishes an effective 20 percent tax rate on marijuana products, reduces the number of cannabis plants each person can grow from six to three and eliminates potential “cannabis social clubs” included in voter referendum.
Mr. LePage’s office referred to the governor’s veto letter when reached by The Washington Times later Wednesday.
“We are not commenting further,” said Peter Steele, the governor’s director of communications.
The Legislature’s override means marijuana sales may start in Maine as early as early 2019, Portland’s WMTW-TV reported.
Twenty-nine states and D.C. have legalized medical marijuana, including Maine. Nine states and D.C. have legalized recreational marijuana, meanwhile, but only six currently have systems in place permitting retail weed sales. Combined, existing legal state medical and recreational marijuana markets may be worth upwards of $24 billion by 2025, a cannabis industry analytics firm predicted earlier this year.
The Obama administration advised the Justice Department in 2013 against enforcing federal anti-marijuana laws in states that have legalized the plant, but the Trump administration rescinded those policies in January.
Seventy percent of U.S. voters oppose the Justice Department enforcing federal marijuana laws in legal weed states, according to the results of a Quinnipiac Poll released last week.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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