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.