PORTLAND, Maine - Next month, residents in Lewiston and South Portland will vote on local ordinances that would legalize possession of small amounts of recreational marijuana. Last November, Portland residents overwhelmingly approved a similar measure. But new data show that, despite that vote, police have issued more marijuana citations than before marijuana was legalized. And supporters of the ballot effort say it's a sign that local authorities are ignoring the will of the people.
Speaking at a City Council meeting Monday night, Portland Police Chief Michael Sauschuck said his department has been gathering statistics on marijuana citations between December 2013 - the month after the ordinance was passed - and October of this year.
"So what we found in that 10-month period is that Portland police officers had issued 48 citations to 46 different individuals." Sauschuck said.
Of those 48 citations, Sauschuck says 14 were not legally authorized by the city ordinance. That's because they concerned possession by juveniles and minors, and public marijuana use - both of which remain outlawed.
The remainder of the citations were issued mostly to people who were stopped for other reasons - including a number of motorists, who were cited for impaired driving, or others who were arrested on criminal charges, including domestic violence, assault and violation of bail.
The latest number compares to 33 citations in the previous period - before the ordinance was passed. That's an increase of nearly 50 percent.
Advocates for the legalization of marijuana are dismayed by this trend. Writing in a blog for the Bangor Daily News, Maine Green Independent Committee Chairman Tom MacMillan accuses city officials of not respecting the will of the people. David Boyer, political director of the Maine Marijuana Policy Project, takes a similar view.
"Pretty disheartening to see city officials thumb their nose at voters," Boyer says. "Voters passed this with 67 percent of the vote last year. They made it clear that adults should not be punished for using a substance safer than alcohol."
Boyer says the refusal by police to follow the ordinance indirectly encourages the use of more harmful drugs than marijuana.
"We have a long tradition in Maine of local control," he says. "There's nothing that says Portland police have to cite people for marijuana. There's no requirement - they have the discretion. You know, they don't give a ticket to everyone who jaywalks or doesn't wear a seatbelt because it's not worth their time and energy. And Portland voters said the same thing about adults disgesting small amounts of marijuana."
Legalization opponents however say such arguments are making a mountain out of a mole hill. "We don't really see this as a big issue," says Scott Gagnon, state coordinator of Smart Approaches to Marijuana Maine, or SAM, a leading opponent of efforts to legalize recreational pot.
Gagnon points out that, of the 48 citations issued for marijuana possession, hardly any of them were for that offense alone. "So this slight increase in citations is not really all that meaningful," he says. "It doesn't indicate any waste of law enforcement because most of the people being cited were stopped for other crimes they were committing."
Portland Police Chief Michael Sauschuck also regards the criticism as a non-issue. Reached by phone Tuesday morning, he said the numbers need to be seen in the context of the 69,000 service calls the department received in total during the period.
When the ordinance was passed, Sauschuck also made it clear that it would make no difference to the police's attitude towards recreational marijuana because it's still illegal under state and federal law. "I believe from the very beginning this ordinance was intended to be symbolic," he said. "It ceratinly is symbolic."
He says the ordinance undeniably sends a strong message about the community's attitude towards marijuana use, but "when it was passed, and still today, state law hasn't changed, federal law hasn't changed, and I've directed my officers to continue to use their discretion, which I believe they're doing incredibly well."
Currently, possession of up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana is considered a civil offense under state law, punishable by a fine. Chief Sauschuck says his officers are not seeking out violations of this statute, nor are they failing to enforce the law when they encounter people breaking it.