The Legislature has been hard-pressed to implement the retail sales of adult recreational use of Marijuana. This bill, passed by citizen’s initiative, has many complicating issues written within the bill that requires very careful implementation.

With the moratorium delaying implementation that the Legislature enacted last year, in order to give the Marijuana subcommittee time to write a new bill, running out this past Thursday, February 1, an attempt to establish a new moratorium to April 18, 2018 failed to pass the House on a very bipartisan vote, 81-63. The Senate did pass the new moratorium so the bill will be back to the House for reconsideration.

I did vote against the new moratorium as I felt, and it was confirmed by many, that even without the moratorium, retail sales could not occur without a license from the state to conduct that business and that was my primary focus and concern. The state cannot establish licensing rules until such time as the Legislature passes a bill that sets in motion that rule-making process. So in essence it was felt that no moratorium was needed.

With the moratorium lapsing last Thursday, the actual bill passed by the citizen’s initiative became law. What I, and other legislators, did not know was that there were a host of very dangerous provisions within the current law that would negatively impact businesses and employers throughout this state.

Several key provisions that were recently pointed out to us by the Maine State Chamber of Commerce were:

• An employee/applicant who uses marijuana will be in a legally protected class and could sue the employer for discrimination even if the employer acts in good faith and puts safety first. No other substance, including alcohol, has this legal protection.

• Marijuana Legalization Act strips the Maine drug testing law of the utility of testing for marijuana and leaves employers powerless when either an applicant or employee tests positive for marijuana.

• Employers face the prospect of having habitual marijuana users in safety sensitive jobs — otherwise they could be sued for discrimination.

• If an employee who uses marijuana hurts someone in a workplace accident, the employer will likely get sued for hiring the person knowing that they use marijuana.

• Maine will be an outlier. No other state (including California, Massachusetts and Colorado) have gone so far in legislation to create marijuana use as a protected class.

Based on these key provisions I believe it is necessary now for the Legislature, especially the House, to reconsider our vote. Maine businesses cannot be saddled with the consequences of these types of unregulated employment practices. The bill being considered by the Marijuana committee does strike out these anti-business provisions and does establish another moratorium until next January, 2019 to allow for rule making to occur.

Based on these factors, I will be supporting the moratorium, allowing the committee to finish their work. When new facts or information is presented, I believe it is our obligation to reconsider a previous vote. I hope other Legislators will agree with my reconsideration and do the same.