With the likely passage of Question One, which legalizes marijuana use for recreational purposes in Maine, the Substance Use Prevention Partnership, a subgroup of Healthy Lincoln County, plans to discuss moratoria in several towns in Lincoln County.

Damariscotta is considering a six-month moratorium to give the town time to plan and establish locations and rules around where a marijuana shop may set up business, but is not planning the ban of shops permanently.  No other towns have yet begun to consider how they will approach the initiative in Lincoln County. Many of the towns where Question One passed in Lincoln County were “service areas” — Wiscasset, Damariscotta/Newcastle, Boothbay/Boothbay Harbor. The only service area town that did not vote for Question One was Waldoboro, where the measure lost by 62 votes.

In most Lincoln County towns, the vote was close, the exception being Jefferson, where the no votes outnumbered the yes votes by 280.

The goal for SUPP is to help towns identify zones where the drug cannot be sold, such as around schools, playgrounds, churches, and perhaps to require filters and other equipment to prevent marijuana smoke or odor from affecting other local businesses, in order to help towns craft ordinances that would prevent young people from accessing the drug. Similarly, municipalities can direct the packaging not to appeal to young people.

Another idea is to create a town-originated surcharge on sales of marijuana or edibles to assist with support for drug treatment and education programs.

Members of SUPP will begin to speak to towns at selectmen’s meetings as soon as they can get onto the agenda, and offer their assistance in crafting rules and regulations surrounding the sale of marijuana within town limits.

The next meeting of SUPP will be held on Dec. 1 at 3:30 p.m. at the Lincoln County Planning Commission building on Route One.