WHAT WE’RE FIGHTING FOR
Supporting small, local businesses
Small businesses bring benefits beyond economic opportunity—they create choice and access for patients and consumers, keep dollars at home, nurture community, and foster and preserve local job creation.
Protecting access for patients
The beginning of adult-use sales does not mean the end of the medical marijuana program, nor should it. While some overlap is logical, medical marijuana policy should be evaluated separately and with a focus on ensuring privacy, access and safety for Maine patients.
Environmental sustainability
Nowhere is marijuana regulation more out of sync than with packaging. Treating marijuana like deadly poison does not serve the goal of public health goal and it imperils our planet with needless single-use plastic and other unrecyclable materials.
Social justice
We have a responsibility to develop a just and fair industry, including recognizing and addressing the cost to those who laid the foundation. Marijuana convictions should not create barriers to licensing and marijuana convictions should be sealed, releasing people from the stigma and negative life outcomes for behavior that is now legal.
Destigmatization
Regulating marijuana like a highly dangerous substance requiring more safeguards than even alcohol or tobacco does not improve public health or consumer safety, nor does it build a culture of moderation. Our cannabis stores should not feel like prisons, and our marijuana doesn’t need to look like pharmaceuticals.
Freedom for hemp
Cannabis containing minimal amounts of THC is not ‘marijuana’ and should not be treated as such. We must protect hemp from being pulled under the umbrella of marijuana regulation. Maine law and regulations now support farmers’ ability to cultivate and process this incredible plant and provide it to Maine people. We must fight new USDA rules that could undermine our small, local hemp farmers.
Consumer privacy
While Maine has legalized marijuana, our federal government has not. It continues to be listed, along with heroin, among the most dangerous drugs. It is therefore crucial that the state-compliant choices of Maine marijuana businesses, consumers and medical patients be kept private.