Republican Gov. Paul LePage and House Minority Leader Ken Fredette say they want to extend Maine’s moratorium on retail marijuana sales and cultivation until 2019.
The proposal further jeopardizes passage of a bipartisan bill designed to overhaul and implement the voter-approved marijuana law passed nearly a year ago.
RELATED: Legalize Maine Says Legislature's Rewrite of Marijuana Law 'Not Ready For Prime Time'
Fredette says the 9-month process to draft the marijuana implementation bill was rushed. And he says it excluded a key stakeholder—the LePage administration.
“I have concerns that the executive branch hasn’t been involved in it. I have concerns that the rule-making is going to take far more time than people anticipate,” he says.
Fredette says the result is a flawed bill that has created a number of enemies, including Legalize Maine, one of the groups that helped put the original legal marijuana bill on the ballot last year.
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