The Legislature will be having a very interesting session starting in January when it tackles the thorny issues surrounding the legalization of recreational marijuana. It almost makes me wish that I could be a statehouse reporter focusing on this one subject.

There are so many questions to address from the creation of a Cannabis Control Commission to how much to tax it to the simple legal mechanics of how many stores per town and where the stores will be placed.

Whether you supported the ballot question or not, I think the majority of people in the Commonwealth would agree that with the legalization of medical marijuana and with decriminalization this move was the logical next step – but watch out though it’s a long one.

I really don’t understand why cannabis sales couldn’t be handled in the same way as alcohol sales. We have a legal and bureaucratic edifice that has been set up to administer the legal sale of booze so why couldn’t that structure be duplicated for pot? Or could the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission be enlarged to include cannabis?

In Massachusetts we have the tendency of wanting to re-invent the wheel and I’m afraid we will see it again. Look how successful our medical marijuana efforts have been.

Should liquor stores be allowed to sell cannabis? They already sell a controlled substance. Should there be cannabis bars as there are in Holland?

How is the state going to regulate a guy like me with a big backyard from growing the legal limit of plants and selling pot to friends, family or complete strangers? I don’t smoke it, but I’m a local journalist so I always could use an additional revenue stream.

Should a cannabis shop be as common a sight in a residential neighborhood as a package store? People may shudder at that, but I’m willing to wager that more lives have been adversely affected by alcohol than pot so why aren’t we outraged about their presence?

Or will cannabis sales be handled in the same way as porn shops and strip clubs? Municipalities like to put those on the outskirts, away from schools, other businesses and churches. I could easily see that happening. Wouldn’t most Main Streets in Western Massachusetts want to avoid a pot shop?

How would MGM react if a cannabis store set up shop near its casino in Springfield? Is that a good thing or bad thing? Would MGM want to have its own marijuana sales operation?

I will be very interested in how Northampton will treat cannabis sales, as the town despised having a porn shop rent a building on King Street. It’s almost impossible for me to understand how a town that supposedly celebrates free speech could object to a legal porn shop, but they twisted themselves inside out over it. Is marijuana more politically correct than pornography? At least for that community it will be, I bet.

Think a moment when you had your first beer? Did an older sibling get it for you? Did you drink one of your dad’s when he wasn’t around? Are you now ready to accept that is what is going to happen with legal pot?

Remember when the Commonwealth lowered the drinking age to 18 – yes, young ones that actually happened many years ago. Well, they raised it back up to 21 when there was an increase in underage drinking and car accidents. How are we going to keep teenagers from smoking it when it’s legal when so many smoke it now when it’s illegal?

I think we have come a long way in a more sensible policy than when I was in high school and the police had the right to arrest anyone in the presence of cannabis, regardless whether they had it in their possession or were seen smoking it. Being at the wrong party at the wrong time could have resulted with a trip down to the station and an anguished call to mom and dad.

We still have a very long way to go in reconciling our society’s need to alter its mental state with public health and safety concerns.

Questions, questions, questions – there are so many of them and if our legislators approach this issue with the vigor it deserves they will be earning their money and then some.