South Portland, Maine (AP) - Marijuana advocates want to finally take their legalization drive - so far the province of Western states - to the Northeast, and they say the first state to do it here might be Maine.

The Pine Tree State has a long history with cannabis - Maine voters approved medical marijuana legalization 15 years ago, becoming the first New England state to do so. Now, national marijuana advocates say, the state represents a chance for pro-marijuana forces to get a toehold in the Northeastern states they have long coveted.

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AUGUSTA, MAINE (AP) - A group that wants to legalize recreational marijuana is beginning its push to put the measure before Maine voters in 2016. Legalize Maine, a newly formed political action committee, is calling its plan "a home-grown effort" to legalize marijuana in Maine. The group's organizer, Paul McCarrier, said Wednesday that its proposal can help revive Maine's economy. McCarrier's group wants to tax marijuana at 8 percent, the same as prepared food, lodging, and liquor. It also wants to create marijuana social clubs. The effort is separate from another push to legalize marijuana in the state.

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Supports Enforcing Laws Over Treatment Options

LEWISTON, Maine - When Massachusetts' governor invited his New England counterparts to a meeting last month on the surge in opioid overdoses, the only no-show was Governor Paul LePage of Maine.

Governor Deval Patrick urged reporters after the meeting not to read anything into LePage's absence. It's just a scheduling problem, he said.

But LePage's press secretary, Adrienne Bennett, had a different take: The governor felt staying in Maine to talk with veterans and release crime statistics was "a higher priority than a photo-op with other New England governors," Bennett said.

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Imagine this: Two defendants, same age, smoke joints with some friends one July evening in their apartments. Neither has a criminal record. Both get caught; one faces an extra two years in jail.

Why? Because he shared drugs within a certain number of feet from a school that's been out for a month.

The so-called "Drug Free School Zone" is one of many laws that create extra penalties for already illegal acts with no reasonable tie to the public's safety or the defendant's particular circumstances.

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L.D. 1739, "An Act To Amend the Maine Medical Use of Marijuana Act," was returned to the Legislature's Committee on Health and Human Services on Feb. 11, after parents and patients expressed concern with the language about "kief" as well as other concerns.

I know our legislators in Maine's House and Senate have no ill intent toward our children, but they are being misled. This committee has completed its review. Committee members report that the proposal now references Maine's Criminal Code in regard to "hashish," and now directly prohibits the use of hashish. By the referenced Maine Criminal Law Code, hashish is defined to include marijuana extracts. With the change of words from "kief" to "hashish," and this reference to Maine's Criminal Code, the law effectively bans my daughter's medication.

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Last week, the media reported about the precipitous and unexpected decline of MaineCare patients receiving prescription opiates for pain management (Bangor Daily News, Feb. 27).

As an operator of Canuvo, in Biddeford, one of the eight dispensaries participating in the Maine Medical Use of Marijuana Program, and as president of the Maine Association of Dispensary Operators, I believe there is another piece to this story.

A great many of the patients benefiting from medical cannabis are enrolled in MaineCare. Even though MaineCare doesn't cover the cost of this medicine, many of these patients come to us seeking an alternative to the prescription opiates they've used for pain.

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The Democratic Senate Candidate Has Been a Supporter of Legalization

WASHINGTON - Shenna Bellows, the Maine Democrat challenging Republican Sen. Susan Collins in this November's election, received endorsements on Wednesday from two organizations pushing to legalize marijuana at the state and federal levels.

Bellows, who supports legalization and regulating marijuana more like alcohol, received the endorsements from the political action committees of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) as well as the Marijuana Policy Project. A bill has been introduced in the current Congress to legalize marijuana but is unlikely to pass.

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Maine public health officials have denied an Ellsworth man's request to use marijuana legally to treat Tourette syndrome.

The Maine Department of Health and Human Services this week denied a request by the man's doctor, Dustin Sulak, to add Tourette syndrome to the list of medical conditions that qualify for treatment with marijuana. Sulak said a denial letter signed by agency Commissioner Mary Mayhew arrived on Christmas Eve without any explanation for the decision.

Sulak and his patient, Peter Hasty, had testified in November that marijuana helped Hasty's muscular tics caused by Tourette.

Hasty said marijuana allows him to function in society.

Studies looking at the effectiveness of marijuana to treat Tourette are inconclusive.

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FORT KENT, Maine - Earlier this month, the possession of marijuana for nonmedical use became legal in Portland. This, and other sporadic discussions about marijuana legalization in Maine, has shifted the focus of an Aroostook County-based organization that works to curb substance abuse among young people.

Now, besides teaching youth about the dangers of drunk driving, they are paying more attention to how marijuana can impair motorists when they get behind the wheel.

Michelle Plourde Chasse, Community Voices project manager, said in the past, Community Voices and similar groups have focused on alcohol when talking about impaired driving prevention over the past two or three decades.

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Rigid Drug Sentences Alone Account for Far Too Many Inmates WHO've Been Held for Far Too Long.

WASHINGTON - In the same news cycle when Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would free more than 20,000 inmates from his country's prisons, President Obama announced a rather less grand gesture of clemency. He commuted the sentences of eight people convicted of crack-cocaine offenses all of whom have served at least 15 years and used his pardon power to erase the criminal records of 13 miscellaneous ex-offenders.

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How a City That Just Enacted the East Coast's First Marijuana Legalization Law Was Once at the Forefront of the Nation'S Prohibition Movement.

The Portland city ordinance purporting to legalize the recreational use of marijuana took effect earlier this month the first in the eastern United States. Seeing Portland take the lead in a loosening-up of drug laws arouses a sense of irony in that the city was once in the vanguard of enacting the country's first laws outlawing liquor, boasting prominent Prohibition leaders in America. A complete turnabout in the city's mindset has not, however, necessarily occurred, as the story of these two early Portland temperance advocates illustrates.

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A Low-Potency but Effective Strain From Colorado Offers Maine Families Hope, but Also Tests the Legal Limits of Medicinal Pot, Highlighting How Far Some Parents Will Go to Alleviate the Suffering of Kids Who Have Epilepsy.

On a dark night in November, Meagan Patrick drove from her home in Acton with her husband, Ken, and their two children to a medicinal marijuana dispensary in Portland. Ken parked and went in, while Meagan and the kids waited in the car. "It was literally in a back alley," said Meagan, a 31-year-old third-grade teacher.

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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - The mansion that serves as Maine headquarters of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union lay largely fallow until recently, with drug needles, liquor bottles and pornographic magazines littering the grounds. Now, in the state where Prohibition had its roots and in a city that just legalized recreational marijuana, the WCTU is overhauling the building and looking to reinvent itself.

Leaders of the organization, which is committed to abstinence, plan to take a lower-key approach, compared with the old days when crusading women terrorized saloon owners.

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Editor, Colorado Re-legalized cannabis (marijuana) over a year ago and the sky hasn't fallen. Maine citizens will witness the same in Portland (City Officials Say Discretion Will Play Major Role in Marijuana Enforcement, Dec. 6, 2013) and legalize the God-given plant throughout the state. It's not a matter of if but rather when. Further, Police Chief Michael Sauschuck is mistaken, the federal government erroneously labels cannabis a Schedule I substance alongside heroin while cocaine and meth are only Schedule II substances. For credibility, Congress should reschedule cannabis immediately.

Truthfully, Stan White Dillon, Colo.

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Just as the city's ordinance that legalizes the possession and use of a small quantity of marijuana takes effect, a local group is taking steps to educate kids about the use of the substance.

The 21 Reasons coalition will distribute a pamphlet produced by the National Institutes of Health - "Marijuana: Facts Parents Need to Know" - in all of Portland's high and middle schools to counter kids' perceptions of marijuana use in light of the new ordinance that was passed in November, according to a press release.

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Leading by example is one of the top three "to-do's," in almost every parenting survival guide.

We all know it, but the expression, "Do as I say, not as I do," has gone through the minds (if not the mouths) of every parent who ever existed.

We've all had those minor moments where we profess social/moral/ethical correctness but, because we're human, may occasionally exhibit behavior otherwise.

Saying but not always doing things like: "Buckle up. You'll get a ticket"; "Turn off those lights, we're not the sole supporters of CMP"; "Where's your coat? It's the arctic north out there."

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Discretion.

That's what city officials say is the key component of how Portland's new marijuana ordinance will be enforced in light of state and federal laws still being in play.

The Portland Green Independent Committee hosted a forum on the city's new legalization ordinance on Thursday, as the new city law will take effect today (Friday). Tom MacMillan, chairman of the Portland Green Independent Committee, said the forum was designed to educate the public about the ordinance and how it will be enforced by the Portland Police Department.

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PORTLAND, Maine - An ordinance legalizing possession of marijuana for nonmedical use in Maine's largest city goes into effect Friday.

Last month, Portland voters approved by a wide margin the legalization measure, which allows individuals 21 or older to carry 2.5 ounces or less of the drug according to city rules.

While medical use of marijuana has been legal in Maine since 1999, and larger scale medical marijuana dispensaries have been legal since 2009, the Portland ordinance is the first in the state to legalize pot for recreational purposes.

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The new city law legalizes possession of up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana for adults 21 and older, but Police Chief Michael Sauschuck has said police will continue enforcing the state law, since it supersedes local ordinances.

Portland's new ordinance declaring marijuana possession by adults to be legal within city limits takes effect on Friday, and city officials are trying to prevent the type of celebration that took place on election night.

Several proponents celebrated the lopsided passage of the ordinance by smoking a foot-long joint outside a downtown bar.

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Thursday's vote means a bill to legalize small amounts of marijuana throughout the state won't be able to be reintroduced before 2015.

Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, said her effort to put a statewide marijuana legalization bill before lawmakers in January's legislative session failed because of opposition from one-time allies.

Russell said Friday night that those who opposed her bill latched onto elements of a draft she circulated without giving her, or fellow legislators, time to consider alternatives on matters including a tax rate for pot and ways to clean up the records of past offenders.

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