About the Data: An estimated 83% (360 out of 433) of Maine municipalities prohibit adult-use cannabis sales.
How the 83% figure was derived:
A list the state’s Office of Cannabis Policy provided to Cannabis Business Times showed 121 municipalities “who have gone through their town’s process to adopt an ordinance and affirmatively opt-in for some or all adult-use license types,” Alexis Soucy, director of media and stakeholder relations for the OCP, told CBT. Of those, 48 did not opt in for retail sales (so retail sales are prohibited).
However, in Maine, “the default is for municipalities to be opted-out for all adult-use cannabis license types,” Soucy said.
With 433 municipalities in Maine, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 312 were not on the list provided by the OCP; those municipalities “for the most part … have not taken action and therefore are still opted-out by default,” Soucy said. So as a reasonable estimate, the 312 missing from the list are likely opted out of any adult-use business, give or take a few that Soucy said may just not have reported their status to the state (as towns are not obligated to report their status, according to Soucy).
So the 360 out of 433—83%—figure is the total of the 48 municipalities out of the 121 that opted in to some adult-use license types but opted out of retail plus the 312 that are likely still opted out of any adult-use business.
Data Source: Office of Cannabis Policy/Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services
About Maine’s Adult-Use Cannabis Program: Maine became the eighth state to legalize adult-use cannabis when voters approved ballot Question 1 in the November 2016 election. Adult-use sales began Oct. 9, 2020.
