Marijuana Bill Rejected by ME Legislative Council, Project SAM Commends Legislators & Senate President

PRESS RELEASE                                                                                                                                                                                     Contact: Scott Gagnon
November 21, 2013                                                                                                                                                                                                  207-520-0293
scott.m.gagnon@gmail.com


                                                                                                                                      

MARIJUANA BILL REJECTED BY MAINE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL TONIGHT, PROJECT SAM COMMENDS LEGISLATORS & SENATE PRESIDENT

After a close vote, Senate President Justin Alfond, from Portland, votes down proposal to allow legalization bill to go further.

PORTLAND-Despite a push by a multimillion-dollar, Washington, D.C-based lobbying firm and Rep. Diane Russell, legislation failed to go forward tonight that would have legalized marijuana in Maine. Senate President Justin Alfond broke the tie and voted against the bill. SAM Maine, a broad coalition of public health activists, along with the Maine Public Health Association, and national leaders, lauded the move.

“Given the public health consequences of marijuana, we applaud the legislative council’s action,” remarked Maine Public Health Association Executive Director Tina Pettingill.

SAM Maine’s Coordinator, Scott Gagnon, also supported Sen. Alfond’s move: “Maine’s parents, and its public health and youth advocates, thank you tonight, Senator Alfond.”

SAM’s co-founder, Former Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy, along with American Society of Addiction Medicine President and SAM Board Member Dr. Stuart Gitlow, also thanked the elected officials who voted to stop legalization this year.

“We can agree that aspects of our marijuana policy should be reformed, toward a more public health approach, ” they said. “But it makes no sense to replace one policy with another that would create an even bigger disaster – by creating this century’s version of Big Tobacco.”

SAM Maine launched three weeks ago, and it has four main goals:

* To inform public policy with the science of today’s marijuana.

* To prevent the establishment of “Big Marijuana” – and a 21st-Century tobacco industry that would market marijuana to children.

* To promote research of marijuana’s medical properties and produce, non-smoked, non-psychoactive pharmacy-attainable medications.

* To have an adult conversation about reducing the unintended consequences of current marijuana policies, such as lifelong stigma due to arrest.

Research shows that teens who smoke marijuana have a 1 in 6 chance of becoming addicted and can have significantly lower levels of IQ later in life. New research from Washington state shows that marijuana-related impaired driving has risen 50% since the vote in 2012. Colorado also continues to experience problems.

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About Project SAM

Project SAM is a nonpartisan alliance of lawmakers, scientists and other concerned citizens who want to move beyond simplistic discussions of “incarceration versus legalization” when discussing marijuana use and instead focus on practical changes in marijuana policy that neither demonizes users nor legalizes the drug. Project SAM has taken its initiative to other parts of the United States including California, Colorado, Vermont, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Ohio, and other jurisdictions.