[420 Girl]

Last November, the citizens of Maine voted to approve the Maine Medical Marijuana Act.

After its passage, the governor created a task force to recommend changes to the law to make it most beneficial to Mainers.

In this special report on medical marijuana, we follow the recommendations submitted by the task force and the challenges they faced tweaking this abstract concept.

The Medical Marijuana Task Force is 14 appointed officials made up of legislators, patient advocates and the attorney general have been charged with outlining the medical marijuana law after the referendum was passed by Maine voters.

The Task Force met a total of five times and had three main objectives.

One was to look at marijuana laws in other states. 14 states have legalized medical marijuana. Maine is the fifth state to allow dispensaries, including New Mexico, which members of the force say they used as a template for Maine's law. New Mexico currently has about seven dispensaries in the state, though the task force decided not to predetermine a number for Maine.

The task force's second objective was to recommend changes to the law, mainly to ensure public health and safety and the constant monitoring of the medical marijuana program.

Lastly, the task force was charged to advise the department of health and human services in its development of proposed rules and fee schedules.

Where the law stands now, patients are allotted two and a half ounces of usable marijuana, and can grow six self serving plants.

Though the smoke hasn't cleared to see if medical marijuana will change the way life should be in Maine, on paper the regulations are outlined so legal medical marijuana despensaries could be open in Maine as early as June.

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