It won’t happen any time soon, but in the next couple years, Massachusetts could become home to licensed marijuana cafes ― places where people could consume the drug in public.

The state’s Cannabis Control Commission narrowly approved a policy Thursday establishing the framework for a social consumption pilot program.

Before any such pilot can actually move forward, however, Massachusetts legislators will have to amend state law. WBUR Boston predicts the first cafe is at least a year off.

Public consumption of marijuana in any form is currently illegal in the state. That presents a cannabis conundrum for tourists and renters alike, since apartments and hotel rooms typically don’t permit smoking.

“Right now... they don’t have a place to go, or they’re going to unregulated events that are happening all around the state,” Shaleen Title, a CCC commissioner who helped draft the proposal, told The Boston Globe.

“We’ve been asked by the consumers and by public safety officials to create a regulated [system] where there’s some safety measures in place, there’s some public health measures in place,” she said. “And it will benefit the state to have those.”