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The state human services agency must develop rules for and train staff to deal with dispensaries.

By DAVID HENCH, Staff Writer November 5, 2009

Gov. John Baldacci is expected to sign an executive order this week creating a group to study regulatory issues raised when voters Tuesday approved expanding access to medical marijuana.

Question 5's passage allows creation of medical marijuana dispensaries and increases the number of ailments that would qualify for a prescription.

It was approved by a strong margin – 330,490 to 232,790, or 59 percent to 41 percent – according to unofficial results. It passed in all but three counties: Aroostook, Piscataquis and Somerset.

Interest in creating the dispensaries was almost immediate, said Jonathan Leavitt of Maine Citizens for Patients Rights, which led the effort to ease laws regulating therapeutic use of the plant.

"Based on the 60 phone calls I've had in the past few hours, there's more than a few qualified people out there with knowledge and desire," he said Wednesday afternoon. The calls included nurses and people who have worked extensively with AIDS patients, he said.

"A wide array of folks are happy about what happened and want to know 'How do we do it? Who do we talk to?'" he said.

They'll have to wait.

The Department of Health and Human Services, charged with regulating the dispensaries, must develop rules, train staff and determine the expense of its new responsibility. That probably won't happen until next spring, said Brenda Harvey, DHHS commissioner.

"What we don't want is an unintended outcome – a negative outcome," she said. "We don't want to inadvertently have access – in this case, to marijuana – be open in such a way that we don't honor the public safety we have an obligation to be protecting while meeting the intent of this referendum."

The typical rule-making process takes three to four months, and creating a regulatory environment from scratch will take even more time, she said.

"It's far more complicated than I think one would imagine, being in the voting booth saying 'Yes, I am compassionate and think this is a good idea,'" she said. "I have to think about (a system) that does not compromise a whole bunch of other things we're doing to protect the public."

In 1999, Maine voters approved a citizen initiative that allows patients to grow their own medical marijuana or appoint a designated caregiver to grow it for them. Maine is one of 13 states that allow the use of medical marijuana.

The law let doctors recommend marijuana for conditions including glaucoma, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis or "persistent nausea, vomiting, wasting syndrome or loss of appetite" caused by AIDS or chemotherapy or radiation for cancer.

But organizers of the effort to put Question 5 on the ballot argued that requiring people who are sick and in severe pain to grow their own marijuana is impractical. The new law allows patients to enroll with a dispensary, which can grow marijuana for them. Question 5 campaign organizers also favor an overall relaxation of laws restricting marijuana use.

The question was opposed by state health officials and criminal justice groups, which criticized its lack of oversight and restrictions on dispensaries.

Police and prosecutors have said they worry about illegal diversion of the drug and increased crime.

The head of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention warned of health risks associated with marijuana use and the diversion of state resources to take over the new regulatory responsibility. But voters apparently did not share these concerns.

The law was designed so the state would incur no costs that could not be covered by the $5,000 registration fee that each dispensary will be charged. But Harvey said the state must consider the possibility that the law will carry additional costs that would be hard to absorb in a tight budget environment.

Regulating dispensaries could involve staff time and...