PORTLAND Imagine walking into a neighborhood store to buy beer, wine, liquor and cigarettes. But on your way home you make one more stop to buy marijuana, legally.
That's the vision Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, will outline at a press conference on Wednesday at Portland City Hall, when she introduces
LD 1453: An Act to Legalize and Tax Marijuana.
The bill would legalize and regulate marijuana much the same way the state regulates the alcohol and tobacco industries. It would allow adults over 21 to cultivate, possess, purchase and use marijuana within certain limits.
The bill would also institute a 7 percent sales tax on recreational and medicinal marijuana transactions.
"It's an issue whose time has come," Russell said in an interview Monday morning at the Hilltop Coffee Shop on Munjoy Hill.
Russell said the legislation is supported by the Maine Civil Liberties Union and by a group of caregivers who grow and supply patients with medical marijuana.
Since the bill would legalize pot, it would affect Maine's medical marijuana law, making it unnecessary to get a doctor's permission to buy and use the the drug.