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Maine Rep. David Boyer (R) has an interesting background for a Republican lawmaker: Before winning his election to the House last year, he led the campaign to legalize marijuana in the state as a staffer for a national cannabis reform organization.<\/p>\n
When the 34-year-old legislator reflected during an interview with Marijuana Moment on the unique, civil liberties-focused platform that ushered him into the statehouse in the 2022 election, he offered an anecdote: Down the road from where he lives, there\u2019s a gun range and a cannabis retailer, and his campaign yard signs were posted in front of both of them.<\/p>\n
Boyer is part of a new generation of Republicans who are grounded in a libertarian ideology that allows them to fashion relationships with their Democratic colleagues as they work to move the needle with older GOP members who have historically resisted marijuana reform. And this session, the freshman has helped make progress on the issue in Maine.<\/p>\n
The former Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) staffer who led a ballot campaign to legalize cannabis statewide in 2016 had several bills that he sponsored signed into law this session, including measures to remove<\/a> state prohibitions on gun ownership by people who lawfully use marijuana and doubling<\/a> the number of plants that a person can grow from three to six, with no limits on how many adults can grow their allotment within a single household.<\/p>\n He told Marijuana Moment in a phone interview last week that the latter policy change means that Maine arguably has \u201cthe strongest home grow law in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Boyer serves on the legislature\u2019s Joint Standing Committee on Veterans and Legal Affairs, which has jurisdiction over many cannabis issues. The panel unanimously rejected a bill in May<\/a> that would have authorized interstate marijuana commerce, a step that other states such as California, Oregon and Washington have taken in recent sessions.<\/p>\n \u2014 Asked why he joined his fellow committee members in defeating the proposed reform in Maine, he said that he was keeping the state\u2019s small marijuana businesses in mind. The resulting competition from outside companies would likely threaten them, he reasoned. So while he does believe \u201cultimately we\u2019re going to have to face it, like with alcohol,\u201d it\u2019s imperative to take a \u201cguarded\u201d approach to the issue.<\/p>\n Boyer\u2019s previous work at MPP informed his experience as he entered the legislature, he said. For one, it meant that he wasn\u2019t naive about the challenges and politics around marijuana. He understood the importance of establishing bipartisan relationships with colleagues and leadership\u2014and he also knew how to talk about marijuana policy in a way that resonated not only with other libertarian-minded Republicans, but also with lawmakers from across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s somewhat of a generational divide. But I think it\u2019s changing,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think some of the older representatives and senators appreciate younger folks getting involved. We are the ones who are going to inherit these wars and this debt and then the devalued dollar, so we better start taking ownership before it\u2019s too late. So, yeah, it\u2019s been pretty fun, a kind of a wild trip.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI started with MPP in 2013, so that\u2019s 10 years ago now, and I definitely didn\u2019t imagine I\u2019d be a lawmaker at the time. But it\u2019s been pretty cool how things have progressed,\u201d he said. \u201cI definitely am glad for my background as an activist and advocate between cannabis policy and then other stuff and learning how politics works and different grassroots strategies and media and all that.\u201d<\/p>\n Additional legislation that Boyer has been involved with would permit cannabis social use licenses, which he hopes will both allow on-site use at marijuana businesses and also license non-cannabis facilities like movie theaters and coffee shops to have designated areas where people can lawfully consume.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also cosponsored legislation<\/a> that would allow for the therapeutic use of psilocybin mushrooms in medically supervised settings, while legalizing the possession and home cultivation of the psychedelic.<\/p>\n \u201cSo that\u2019s pretty cool\u2014and reasonable, especially for like middle class people who can really benefit from it therapeutically\u201d but who might not be able to afford formal sessions, he said.<\/p>\n The Maine Senate did pass a medical psilocybin bill last year, but it was rejected in the House<\/a>.<\/p>\n Boyer has also cosponsored a bill<\/a>\u00a0to broadly decriminalize possession of currently illicit substances. Before he joined the legislature, a similar measure cleared the House but was struck down in the Senate<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of hope for that and a lot of strong supporters,\u201d he said. However, he doubts that Gov. Janet Mills (D), who formerly served as the state\u2019s attorney general, would sign it or that lawmakers would have the supermajority to override if she did. Boyer said he anticipates that activists will eventually need to collect signatures to put the reform on the ballot.<\/p>\n He also said that he\u2019s heard rumblings about a potential effort to place psychedelics on the ballot, though he\u2019d prefer to see the issue tackled legislatively.<\/p>\n But much of Boyer\u2019s focus has gone to cannabis this session, including another piece of newly enacted legislation<\/a> that amends state statute to treat marijuana like alcohol for the purposes of bail, conditional release and probation.<\/p>\n When he engages with fellow Republicans in Augusta, Boyer said that his advocacy on the issue sometimes \u201cconfuses some folks and makes people think.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that it opens an opportunity to \u201cget to argue that the drug war is big government at its worst, and it\u2019s anti-freedom.\u201d That strategy and messaging, the lawmaker said, seem to be getting some traction\u2014and the bills he passed this session indicate that he\u2019s right.<\/p>\n Justice Department Extends Public Comments Period On Marijuana Pardon Certificate Application<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Maine GOP Lawmaker Who Previously Led Marijuana Ballot Campaign Discusses His Legislative Wins In First Term In Office<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Maine Rep. David Boyer (R) has an interesting background for a Republican lawmaker: Before winning his election to the House last year, he led the campaign to legalize marijuana in the state as a staffer for a national cannabis reform organization. When the 34-year-old legislator reflected during an interview withContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":66939,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66938"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66940,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66938\/revisions\/66940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Maine GOP Lawmaker Who Previously Led Marijuana Ballot Campaign Discusses His Legislative Wins In First Term In Office<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"