"Rules have to be promulgated, there has to be public hearing and then the rules adopted, so the process is not 'just because there's been a vote that we can turn this into action tomorrow," says Brenda Harvey, Commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services, which will oversee the dispensaries.

Only two other states have sanctioned dispensaries, but unlicensed ones do exist elsewhere. There aren't many examples for the state to follow, says Harvey, and DHHS has to figure out how much money and staffing is needed.

For instance, the citizen's initiative says dispensaries would have to pay a $5,000 registration fee. But Harvey says that won't generate enough revenue to come close to covering the cost of putting together an infrastructure. "We haven't for example even determined what part of DHHS would this be appropriately managed by. Is this a public health activity? Is this a Substance Abuse Office activity? Is this in our licensing and regulatory services or a combination thereof?"

Harvey says Governor John Baldacci plans to convene a working group that will develop a system to manage the dispensaries. In Portland, Seamus Maguire is eager to see what the group comes up with. "I've already got the funding set aside to get a dispensary up and open so I'm going to try help as many people as I possibly can as fast as possible."

Maguire, the 31-year-old owner of a house painting business, says he knows the benefits of medical marijuana first-hand. He is recovering from lymphoma and grows marijuana to treat post-chemotherapy nausea.

He says five other cancer patients, and one patient with multiple sclerosis, want him to grow pot for them too. He says he's not out to make money, and agrees with a requirement that the dispensaries are non-profit. "On the streets, it's really expensive for medicinal grade. I'd like to help people out and what usually costs people $50 - do it for $10 or $15. As long as I can cover my light bills, my fertilizers, and my overhead -- that's all I care about."

The working group to be convened by the state will include officials in the health arena, as well as public safety representatives who were among the most vocal critics of the ballot initiative.

Roy McKinney is director of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency. He says he's concerned that marijuana will be taken from dispensaries in the way prescription drugs are diverted from pharmacies. "We're going to have a drug that is most abused and sought-after being manufactured. What type of controls are there going to be as to how much is manufactured. What happens with the excess?"

The citizens' initiative does state that dispensaries will meet "minimum security requirements" but that doesn't satisfy McKinney, who worries about robberies. He is also concerned that drug dealing will take place at dispensaries. "We have the situation in California where it's quite documented that you have some of these facilities that are nothing more than store fronts for drug trafficking and money laundering."

Jill Harris of the Drug Policy Alliance Network counters that the situation in California is different from Maine's, in that Maine law specifically allows for dispensaries and regulates them.

She says regulating marijuana will make it harder to get the drug on the black market. "Young people will tell you now that it's easier for them to get marijuana than to get cigarettes and why is that? Because cigarettes are regulated, so what we're saying is when you have regulations in place and those regulations are strict -- and they can be as strict as a state wants to make them -- you're actually making recreational marijuana less available."

Rhode Island and New Mexico are the only two other states that also allow dispensaries by law. Harris says they are in the very early stages of setting them up. If all goes as state officials plan in Maine, dispensaries could be up and running by late spring or early summer.