Members of a state task force charged with implementing Maine's new medical marijuana dispensary law began work today, confronting dozens of questions and a short timetable to answer them. They need to resolve issues for prospective patients, growers and dispensaries by the end of the month.

Gov. John Baldacci imposed the timetable in order to get rules and regulations on the books for setting up non-profit, medical marijuana dispensaries for eligible patients. Maine voters last month overwhelmingly approved the creation of a state-regulated dispensary system. But as task force members, including public safety commissioner Anne Jordan, discovered, envisioning such a system is one thing, and implementing it is another, as the following exchange at today's meeting illustrates.

Anne Jordan: "It says a non-profit dispensary is a primary caregiver; it doesn't say 'maybe' - it says the word 'is.'"
Attorney Dan Walker: "Yeah, it raises a question - having 'is' in there."
Sen. Stan Gerzofsky: "What does 'is' mean?"
Attorney Dan Walker: "What is 'is?'"

Task force members also include Maine's attorney general, public safety and health and human services commissioners, a former drug court judge, a representative from Hospice and the Maine Medical Association, lawmakers and the attorney who helped draft the language of the dispensary legislation.

Concerns run the gamut, from how to make the system accessible for people who need it, to how to keep it secure and legal. But no one is even sure exactly how many patients might qualify for medical marijuan under the expanded list of medical conditions that are now eligible, or how how many dispensaries might be formed.

Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Brenda Harvey is the task force chair. "During the break, someone from the campaign shared with me that the estimate of people is 5,000 to 10,000 who would qualify under this statute. And I don't know what analysis they did to get that, but maybe Dan you can provide us with that?"

"I don't mean to be facetious but I would say the list of potentially qualifying patients would be 1.3 million," responded Gordon Smith, Executive Vice President of the Maine Medical Association, which represents physicians who can authorize medical marijuana for patients. Smith says the fact that chronic pain is now included under Maine's ten-year-old medical marijuana law could swell the rolls of medical marijuana patients.

And he's skeptical about the Maine Citizens for Patients' Rights estimate of 5,000 to 10,000 potential patients. "I don't know where they'd come up with that number," he said.

The concerns raised by individual task force members seemed to reflect their spheres of interest. Both Maine's Public Safety Commissioner Anne Jordan and Maine Attorney General Janet Mills focused on the need for more stringent regulations of dispensaries.

"This bill, at first blush, does not seem to give the state the tools it needs -- it says make rules and regulations -- but what tools, what standards do we have?" Mills said. "What is medically appropriate marijuana? What is the quality control? How do we know who we are dealing with and whether they are capable of growing and providing a medically acceptable quality marijuana in the amount suggested?"

Addresses and locations of dispensaries are supposed to be confidential. But Commissioner Jordon wonders how that would be practical when a law enforcement officer stops someone on the turnpike who happens to be carrying some medical marijuana he just got from a dispensary.

But those who represent patients and the public cautioned the task force not to be so restrictive as to dismiss the intent of the voters. Attorney Dan Walker helped craft the Maine legislation. He also worries about a potential backlash from some cities and towns. "There's definitely a segment of the population that would like to ban these from their community and I think we need to protect -- I think that would be a good amendment to this is to protect from banning them altogether."

Walker says the same thing happened with methadone clinics when lawsuits were filed to try to prevent them from operating in their towns. "And you can't do that. You can zone them appropriately but you can't sue to keep them out of your towns."

Campaign supporters say they've been flooded with calls from people who are interested in accessing medical marijuana, operating a dispensary or growing pot for one. Some suggest the 2.5 ounce limit per patient every two weeks is not enough.

And others, including retired District Court Judge John McElwee, say it's time to move forward. "To me, in a perfect world doctors could prescribe this like Oxycontin and people would go to the drug store and purchase it with health insurance."

But McElwee says federal law prohibits drug stores from selling it. So that leaves Maine and 12 other states that have legalized medical marijuana in a quandry of just how to distribute it to authorized patients. Task force members will take up the matter again next week.