Make Bangor sole marijuana seller
Bangor Council Chairman Joe Baldacci has a very good idea concerning cannabis. He suggests the city form a corporation to sell retail marijuana.
Starting a war is easy, and ending war is difficult. But the war on drugs is ending with this legalization. Use baby steps.
Having the city govern the retail cannabis business would ensure the attainment of child protection, and it would break the black market that would continue to exist if people cannot lawfully sell their backyard crop to pay their property taxes. This would give them a place to sell their crop.
If this business is left to pure capitalism, we will be in a world of hurt because the profits will flow to flatlander corporations and steal this lucrative business from Mainers. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to enhance the economic status of ordinary land-based Maine people. Let’s not blow it away in smoke.
Patrick Quinn
Winterport
Gorsuch favors corporations
I encourage Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins to oppose the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court. King talked about the nomination in his recent listening session at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, but Collins has not met with her constituents about the nomination.
Gorsuch is not the moderate justice we need to help the court balance executive and congressional extremes. As a woman, I am particularly worried by his past judgments and opinions regarding a woman’s right to health care, insurance and employment. For example, he sided with Hobby Lobby when it sued the federal government over a mandate to provide contraception coverage, ruling with a majority on the 10th Circuit Court that a corporation with religious beliefs that oppose contraception cannot be forced to cover contraception under its health care plan.
Women have the right to choose when and if they have children. The separation of church and state is the jewel in the crown of our democracy. We must not allow women — just over 50 percent of our population — to ever be discriminated against because their sex is somehow subject to religious control.
Citizens in countries that uphold state religions suffer discrimination, persecution and imprisonment. The Constitution protects people of many beliefs, and it ensures that all have equal rights. Gorsuch appears to prefer the religious “rights” of corporations over those of individuals, particularly when those individuals are women.
Elaine Tucker
Belfast
Solar energy the future
After reading through material regarding a proposed bill from Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, to expand access to solar power, it strikes me as a practical continuation and improvement for the solar power industry here in Maine.
I have always thought the future power grid breakthrough will be from solar, an unlimited clean source of power that only needs technology to improve to harness this unlimited resource. Sitting around and waiting for that technology will result in nothing. It takes effort and investment of time and money to eventually bring this technology to the front of the energy picture.
The Maine Public Utilities Commission’s decision to roll back net metering takes away a powerful incentive from small investors and individuals who provide the necessary pioneering for the solar industry. We cannot simply stand by and let existing power players cling on to their old way of doing things at the expense of future innovation and progress simply to maintain profits.
It seems to me that individuals who generate their own power should have the freedom to sell any surplus of power to the grid. Anything else starts to sound like simple obstructionism in regard to technological progress and large companies bilking individuals.
Bob Thurm
Arundel
Keep methane waste limits
I want to thank Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King for voicing their opposition to the use of the Congressional Review Act to revoke the Bureau of Land Management methane waste reduction rule. The methane rule was established to limit the flaring, venting and leaking of natural gas that is rampant on the more than 100,000 oil and gas wells on public lands. Between 2009 and 2014 about 375 billion cubic feet of natural gas was wasted — enough to supply about 5.1 million households for a year.
As a physician working in Maine for more than 36 years, I am acutely aware of the cost to people’s health as well. Indiscriminate use of fossil fuels and resulting air pollution contributes to the rising tide of respiratory and cardiovascular ailments. And with methane being 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, the leakage is a large contributor to climate change.
Now is not the time to go backward and unravel processes that limit the extent of climate change. Rising global temperatures already are causing illness, suffering and death. In Maine, we are seeing the spread of Lyme disease, and as humidity and temperatures rise, we are seeing more asthma and heat illness. Particularly vulnerable are children, the elderly and the poor.
I thank our senators for not supporting the reckless and short-sighted rollback of rules that offer Maine people protection of their health and their clean air and water.
Paul Potvin
Hampden
Implement ranked-choice voting
I am writing in regard to the attempt by certain Maine legislators to subvert the will of the people by suppressing the ranked-choice voting law. Ranked-choice voting was passed through a people’s referendum and went into effect in January. But some politicians sought to thwart the people’s law by using the obscure tactic of asking the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to grant a “solemn occasion” to decide whether this law is constitutional. Historically, the state supreme court has never declared a solemn occasion on an enacted state law.
So why are some politicians so afraid of ranked-choice voting? Perhaps it’s because they envision themselves as a future Paul LePage. If ranked-choice voting had been in place during the 2010 election, LePage probably would be basking in the Florida sun right now. Ranked-choice voting allows a resident to vote his or her conscience without worrying about the greater of two evils being elected. It does this by allowing him or her to rank his or her first, second and third choices for office.
So let’s stave off any future LePages by implementing ranked-choice voting now.
Tony Kulik
Belfast