More Changes to Maine’s Marijuana Program Are on the Table on February 10

Earlier this week, the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee in Maine’s legislature considered a series of bills related to Maine’s marijuana program. I discussed one of those in this blog post.

Now, there are three more bills up for a public hearing on February 10:

• An Act to Impose Further Restrictions on Where Marijuana May Be Smoked
• An Act to Improve Compliance with Department of Administrative and Financial Services, Office of Marijuana Policy Registration and Licensure Requirements
• An Act to Amend the Marijuana Legalization Act and Make Other Implementing Changes 

The latter two are both children of the Office of Marijuana Policy. Those who were present at the hearing earlier this week will recall that OMP asked the committee to hold off on any significant changes to Maine’s adult use program. Perhaps consistent with this position, nothing proposed in either OMP bill is really big or structural. But…

Of note, the committee will be considering a new category of licensee: a "marijuana establishment support entity," which seems to be a way for OMP to regulate "sample collectors" who will be working with testing facilities and, perhaps, others who touch the product but don’t fit neatly into a current category of licensee.

OMP is also proposing an exemption to Maine’s Freedom of Access Act for certain discrete categories of information, including trade secrets related to marijuana cultivation, etc., and standard operating procedures for marijuana establishments.

Big picture: we can expect the State to continue tweaking our marijuana programs for years to come. I won’t be surprised by some key changes this session, with more and bigger changes to come down the road.

Tomorrow’s City Council Meeting on Portland’s Ordinance

Ok, so it's actually a meeting of the HHS and economic development subcommittees but, either way, it’s a necessary and important step to finalizing Portland’s ordinance and launching adult use in Maine’s largest city. The subcommittees will be taking public comment, so in terms of how many hours of comments we should expect to sit through, we’ll see if the craze around the cannabis industry or the distractions of Thanksgiving win out. I’m planning on a long night. 

A couple of particular items to look out for: 

• First, the current draft ordinance doesn’t permit the transfer of licenses. This would mean that an adult use store that transfers 10% or more of its equity to someone else would lose its license. Since bank loans aren’t really a thing in the cannabis industry, private investors are key and private investors want equity. Private investors also want to be able to sell their equity. So the ban on transferability doesn’t work in the industry. I expect we’ll hear some conversations about that.
  
• Second, THE CAP. It will be interesting to see if the cap stays at 20 retail stores total, or which direction it moves, or whether it is entirely eliminated. I’m sure the councilors are getting an earful on the daily about this.
  
• Third, the criteria to get a license look like a work in progress. They’re oddly structured in the current draft and really favor businesses that have owned or leased their retail location for a long, long time. They also strongly favor applicants who have operated a different type of licensed business in Portland for a long period of time. The lottery criteria tell us a lot about the city’s policy priorities, and I expect that the councilors will want some changes to these as well. 

See you tomorrow.

Maine Takes Another Step Toward Becoming a Marijuana Tourism Destination—But Are We Moving Fast Enough?

Maine’s cannabis tourism program might be hitting its stride. The Office of Marijuana Policy has reached “instant reciprocity” arrangements with 23 states which allow medical cannabis patients from those states to also use their patient cards in Maine. Here’s the announcement from the OMP. Consistent with state law, the visiting qualifying patient can purchase up to 2.5 oz of medical marijuana and marijuana products every 15 days while visiting Maine. 

Adult use tourism will obviously be of a different cloth, since the hope is that it will attract consumers who can’t legally purchase marijuana products in their home state. There is some evidence that Massachusetts’ rec program is attracting New Yorkers, and the hope is that Maine’s program will bring folks from New Hampshire and New York, etc. Of course, in an industry where there’s a massive "first mover" advantage, it’s not clear that Maine will really open the floodgates to adult use marijuana in time to reap many of the benefits that earlier states are seeing.

Welcome to Our Blog (and, What We’re All About)

Welcome to the Cannabis Law and Policy Update! You can expect updates and commentary on a potpourri of marijuana and hemp happenings at the state and federal level. We will be primarily focused on the law (since we’re lawyers), but in the broadest sense. Think everything from court decisions to legislation to regulation to enforcement, with our reactions and some practical advice sprinkled throughout.

At the moment, every week seems to bring some significant development in the world of cannabis law and policy. Maine’s rulemaking process for adult use marijuana is heating up, which means that a (legal) adult use industry is just around the corner; the legality of hemp and CBD is a complete rollercoaster ride; the Legislature is continuing to fix and tinker with Maine’s medical and adult use marijuana laws; and the feds remain curmudgeons all around. We’ll be hitting on specific angles in this arena all the time, so check back frequently and subscribe.