A report prepared for the Oregon Cannabis Commission suggests the state should create a new agency to regulate marijuana.

That job is now spread among the Oregon Health Authority, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission and the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

OHA oversees the state’s medical marijuana program, the OLCC does the same for recreational cannabis and the Agriculture Department handles such things as water pollution, the use of pesticides and the safety of edibles.

The report may be right, but before lawmakers, who would have to create any new agency, move ahead on the idea they should consider several things.

First, and perhaps most important, they should approach the idea of creating a new state agency with skepticism, and lots of it. They must also consider whether current responsibilities and systems could be made to work better without creating something entirely new.

Lawmakers must ask themselves why the current system isn’t working well. If the three agencies aren’t willing to tackle marijuana regulation with a unified front, lawmakers could set out lines of authority more clearly. Communications and culture problems shouldn’t be insurmountable.

They must remember, too, that legal recreational marijuana is still relatively new to Oregon and getting governance right might take time.

A look back at old (1933-34) issues of The Bulletin makes it clear that Oregon’s shift to legal alcohol sales after the end of Prohibition in December 1933 was not particularly quick nor smooth, and the shift didn’t involve as many moving parts as this one does.

If it takes better direction from lawmakers, or more employees to do what must be done, more money or some other change to the current arrangement, that’s understandable.

Lawmakers should look seriously for alternatives that do not, in a cash-strapped state, require creation of yet another bureaucracy.