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The legalization of recreational marijuana will jumpstart a growing and regulated agricultural sector.

(AP Photo)

It took a year of getting used to, but the unthinkable made sense from the start: Sell recreational and medical marijuana under the same roof. One-stop shopping. Streamlined regulatory efforts. No confusion from consumer. And, critically, no threat to medical marijuana users fearful their preferred products would be lost.

Blistering through bills in a legislative session lasting what seems the blink of an eye, lawmakers in Salem are tightening Oregon's rollout of legal recreational pot in such a way as to integrate the well-established, but largely unregulated, medical marijuana market into the new recreational market. In doing so, they'll save themselves and Oregonians from unkinking a dual system that might have sputtered in just a few years.

This week, a bill to close the separation between legal recreational and medical marijuana will go up for a vote. It should pass. It allows businesses with licenses to sell recreational pot also to sell medical marijuana products. Significantly, it also would require that any medical marijuana product sold in a recreational pot shop undergo the same rigorous tracking, from seed to sale, as recreational pot and as conducted by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. This is good for the consumer, good for regulators and law enforcement, and good for a new market segment that will depend upon state-certified product authenticity and consistency. A separate bill, meanwhile, would ensure that purchases by medical marijuana patients, along with their caregivers, will continue to be free of taxation.

To the credit of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Implementing Measure 91, whose long work last year was made sweaty from debates about keeping the markets separate, lawmakers now seem to believe enough ground has been turned to get pot right straight out of the gate.

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Editorial Agenda 2016



Get Oregon centered

Better leadership in education

Make Portland a city that works

Build Oregon prosperity

Protect and expand personal freedom

Get pot right

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Last week, for example, the Legislature's Joint Marijuana Legalization Committee was unanimous in supporting yet another bill that would remove from early regulations protectionist language stipulating out-of-state investors seeking to do pot business in Oregon meet an Oregon residency requirement -- a rule hatched last year to allay fears among some growers who worried their lunch would be eaten by wealthy outsiders. But even the Oregon Cannabis Association, which represents some growers, supported the wise action, Noelle Crombie of The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

Big complicated new things take time to get right, and implementing Measure 91 one is such thing. Fortunately, the Legislature and then the OLCC had all of last year to lend provisional shape to what rational pot commerce might look like. This year, in the short session, they can and must fine-tune their statutes and regulations as they rethink some assumptions.

Few thought along the way that towns and cities across nearly half the state, whose residents overall had approved Measure 91, would opt out of allowing pot shops at all within their borders. But they have. And many municipalities embracing weed commerce have established their own offices to oversee store siting, policing and licensure, Portland among them.

Context, however, is everything. State laws that are lean, coherent and true to the broader goals of Measure 91 -- among them the decriminalization of the marijuana trade and shrinkage of marijuana's black market -- are essential. Yet the very same laws and regulations must vigorously serve the ease and interests of both medical and recreational consumers to ensure success.

-- The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board