They go high, we go … ?

In Siloam Springs, the city’s Board of Directors has adopted a temporary moratorium on any city applications for locations that would grow and dispense marijuana for medical uses. In the face of statewide approval of medical marijuana, city leaders want additional time to figure out the still-developing state rules and what considerations city ordinances should make.

In Benton County, administrators are trying to figure out what adjustments to employment policies need to be made to account for the legal availability of marijuana based on physician recommendations. It may not be so simple as the old “drug-free workplace” approach of yesteryear.

Voters last November created a path to legal acquisition of marijuana for 18 specific medical issues, but the measure on the ballot didn’t answer — and didn’t try to answer — all the complications that the presence of medical marijuana will present. The law may make it far less complicated for a person in pain to find relief, but for the coming months and perhaps years, employers and government officials will get no relief from the struggle to merge the voters’ decisions with good and necessary policies.

Sit back, folks. This is going to take a while.