Maine Laws Change, Beginning With Opioids, Hard Cider and State Park Fees.

The New Year brings some changes to Maine laws:

• In an effort to address opioid overdoses, the maximum dose of morphine equivalent available to most patients will be 100 milligrams a day. Patients with chronic pain will be limited from 90 days down to only 30 days for opioid prescriptions. Patients needing short term treatment will be receiving 7 day prescriptions instead of 10. Some state lawmakers are already crafting bills fighting the change saying that going without appropriate levels of pain medicine will leave some people disabled or forced to find it illegally.
• The state's minimum wage will go up on January 7th to nine dollars an hour and will increase a dollar a year until it tops out at twelve dollars in 2020.
• Maine's hard cider will get harder! The alcohol content of hard cider will go up from 7 to 8.5 percent alcohol by volume.
• State park passes are going up a whopping 50%! Season automobile passes will jump from $70 to $150.

This is the first round of change, most new laws don't take place until 90 days after the legislature has adjourned, usually in June.