A forum at the Blue Hill Town Hall on Monday, September 18, about retail marijuana in area towns drew residents and town officials looking for answers and wanting to share their views about retail marijuana. It came as state legislators wrap up work on a bill to amend a citizens’ initiative legalizing personal and retail marijuana. After regulations are created, retail marijuana will be alive in Maine. Personal use and possession is here already.
“There’s a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation out there,” said panelist Lynne Williams, a Bar Harbor attorney specializing in cannabis law who helped draft the initiative.
Under the law, municipalities may prohibit and regulate the number and location of retail marijuana establishments, and voters in Blue Hill and Surry will face proposed prohibition ordinances in the next two weeks.
“An informed citizenry is the cornerstone of democracy,” moderator Nat Barrows, editor and publisher of Penobscot Bay Press, said before four panelists, each with a unique perspective and knowledge, engaged with the audience in “Retail Marijuana: A Community Conversation,” organized and sponsored by the local news and information company.
Wants to open retail store
Panelist Dan Brown, a licensed medical marijuana caregiver who opened a growing and accessory store earlier this year, plans to open a retail marijuana store and engage in a retail cultivation operation in Blue Hill if the town doesn’t prohibit. He estimates providing a ballpark $50,000 in revenue to the town plus up to a dozen jobs based on proposed state revenue sharing with municipalities that host facilities, and staff and security. He gave serious shrift to an audience question on security of cultivation areas.
“I sleep in a tent for a month, and I’m armed,” he answered. “Security is a big issue and has to be addressed, but I think it can be addressed in a safe way. Would you rather have [marijuana] gummy bears sold out of a trunk behind TradeWinds or across a counter [with security]?” Brown asked.
“Towns have an absolute right”
“Personally, I don’t think we should make this decision based on the revenue we can make,” Blue Hill Selectman and panelist Ellen Best said. “Base it on personal choice and the ability of adults to make a choice. This is what this is really about, letting people make these choices for themselves….Towns have an absolute right to elect whether or not to have [retail marijuana] in town.”
She spoke to built-in protections in the law, for example, on safeguarding marijuana products from youth, but also against the idea that retail marijuana would help tourism in Blue Hill, which has a large, seasonal population that does not have a voice in the decision.
Not all audience members agreed that tourism would not benefit, pointing to the narrow margin of approval of the Act both statewide and in local towns.
Harm reduction a priority
Panelist Tara Young, Healthy Acadia Community Health Program Manager, focused on public health issues, noting impaired drivers, accidental ingestion of products by children, and the increase in potency from 1.3 percent THC—the chemical in marijuana that causes the high—in 1978 to 9.5 percent to 37 percent today. A higher THC content “does play into” the addictive properties, Young said, citing a study showing youth who smoke or ingest marijuana have a significantly higher chance of becoming addicted than those who wait until they are over 21 years old.
“There are a lot of things we can do to reduce risk,” she said. “Whether or not a town votes [to prohibit], it’s very important to take proactive steps to reduce risks. ”
Young agreed that whether towns prohibit or not, gummy bears and other retail marijuana products are coming. “We have to address this,” she said.
Bipartisan effort in Augusta
Panelist Lynne Williams said the bill to amend the Act, drafted by a bipartisan committee, would be voted on by the full legislature in October. A draft was released last week, and a public hearing is on September 26, the same day Blue Hill votes.
“The [bill] will pass with some tweaks, nothing major,” Williams suggested.
The bill protects smaller Maine growers, with a six-month residency requirement, four tiers of cultivation site size, and license fees half as much for outdoor sites as for indoor sites.
“A lot of interest in this area is growing outdoors or in barns,” she said. “Not every cultivation business is going to be an industrial warehouse.”
The zoning question
“With no zoning in Blue Hill, if we did pass [retail cultivation], why wouldn’t a big business come in?” Blue Hill resident Jen Traub asked.
“The law provides that towns can limit [operations] even without comprehensive zoning laws,” Best replied. If Blue Hill voters do not pass the proposed prohibition ordinances, “the town will have to draft ordinances…[to] be voted on at town meeting.”
Towns can also change their minds and repeal an ordinance allowing retail marijuana. If that happened, state licenses would still be valid but the operation would have to move, Williams said.
“I don’t understand why the town wouldn’t take control of it. I see an opportunity here,” Surry resident Charlie Pizzarello said. “Prohibition just didn’t work.”
But for others, like Blue Hill’s John Gandy, prohibition is the right path.
“I think this was a great discussion tonight,” he said after the forum. “But I’m absolutely opposed to having this in our town. There’s a lot more to consider here than a few more jobs and a [potential] income for the town.”
Best summed it up: “We’re a true democracy in town. We get to make [this] decision.”
credit:castinepatriot.com