Green Party leader responds to increased marijuana citations in Portland

Leaders of the campaign to legalize recreational marijuana use celebrate in Portland last November. From left to right are David Boyer, Maine Director for the Marijuana Policy Project; Portland City Councilor David Marshall; and Tom MacMillan. Photo, Troy R. Bennett- BDN.

Leaders of the campaign to legalize recreational marijuana use celebrate in Portland last November. From left to right are David Boyer, Maine Director for the Marijuana Policy Project; Portland City Councilor David Marshall; and Tom MacMillan. Photo, Troy R. Bennett- BDN.

About the author: Tom MacMillan is the chair of the Portland Green Independent Committee and former Secretary of the Maine Green Independent Party. The Portland Greens spearheaded the successful campaign for the 2013 marijuana legalization ordinance.

Last November, Portland was not the only municipality where voters called for an end to the failed war on marijuana. Voters in Jackson, Michigan, also voted overwhelmingly in favor of a similar ordinance. Following the referendum, Jackson’s Police Chief acknowledged that his officers have a duty to the residents to follow the spirit of the law enacted by voters, saying “First and foremost, it was my objective to enforce what voters voted on…We struggled with some details in the law, but it’s the law.”

The opposite is true in Portland, where citations have increased by nearly 50%. Clearly, city officials do not respect the will of the people on this issue. Voters in both Jackson and Portland gave a clear signal that the enforcement of laws punishing adult users of marijuana was an unacceptable use of taxpayer funds, yet local officials here have ignored the people’s vote.

Following our victory at the polls, I sat down with a number of city officials to discuss enforcement, including Chief Michael Sauschuck, Mayor Michael Brennan, and then-City Manager Mark Rees.

At that meeting, Chief Sauschuck said that he and his staff would ignore the result of the referendum and continue to enforce an unjust law despite local opposition. He said so publicly at a public forum in December 2013.

Despite over 67% of voters instructing the city to do otherwise, officials were unrelenting. While Brennan, Sauschuck and Rees pledged to instruct officers to use ‘discretion’ and we were assured that marijuana enforcement was not a priority for our law enforcement officers. Given the increase in citations of non-violent adult marijuana possessors, has marijuana become more of a priority for city police over the past year?

When the Portland Green Independent Committee drafted and circulated the ordinance during the spring of 2013, we recognized the so-called ‘gray area’ the ordinance would put our city within. However, it has been clear for years that Portland is no stranger to controversy, nor are we shy about creating uncomfortable conflicts between federal, state and municipal power.

Under federal law, all marijuana use and production is strictly penalized. Despite this, the Portland Police Department does not cite or arrest medical marijuana patients. Since we make exceptions on the state and local level to federal law on medical marijuana, why has the people’s ordinance on full legalization been deliberately ignored?

In 2007, the City Council passed an ordinance which made Portland a ‘sanctuary city’ or one in which the police department does not and should not question a person’s immigration status unless they are being investigated for separate crime. When I helped write the 2013 marijuana ordinance, we specifically modeled the language on this 2007 law. Despite being nearly identical wording and both contrary to state and federal law, the voter-approved ordinance is ignored and the City Council approved ordinance is followed.

It is wrong for the city to hide behind state and federal law on marijuana legalization and to pick and choose which federal and state laws to ignore and which to obey. The people of Portland have spoken. We need to end police overreach and allow adults to make their own decision on marijuana use. Portland residents demanded an end to citations for adult marijuana users a year ago.

Chief Sauschuck and Mayor Brennan, are you listening?

Chris Shorr

About Chris Shorr

Chris is a sixth generation Portlander who loves all things Maine. He has worked with mentally ill and marginalized adults at a Portland non-profit, on a lobster boat in Casco Bay, at several high-end Portland restaurants, and at a local meat packing plant. He also ran for Portland City Council in 2013, wrote a weekly column in the now defunct Portland Daily Sun, and currently writes a weekly column in The Portland Phoenix.