LePage vetoes bill to launch Maine's recreational marijuana marketplace [View all]

Gov. Paul LePage on Friday vetoed a bill to launch Maine’s adult-use marijuana market.

LePage, a staunch opponent of marijuana, said he doesn’t want Maine to operate two different marijuana programs – medical and adult-use – with two different tax rates and two different sets of rules, and raised concerns about the impact of marijuana impairment on traffic crashes. He also said he cannot “in good conscience” support a law that violates federal law because marijuana remains classified as a Schedule 1 drug.

In his veto letter, LePage once again criticized lawmakers for creating different regulatory structures and tax rates for medical marijuana and recreational marijuana. He also said that other states that have legalized recreational marijuana “have seen staggering increases in motor vehicle fatalities resulting from marijuana impairment.” He did not offer data to support this assertion.

“After one of the worst years in recent memory for crashes, fatalities and pedestrian fatalities, we should take every step to ensure safety on Maine roads instead of making them more hazardous,” LePage wrote. “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.”

Read more: https://www.pressherald.com/2018/04/27/lepage-vetoes-marijuana-bill-2/