The issues surounding medical marijuana in Oregon are numerous and complex. But we think Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters was right to refuse to allow medical marijuana inside the county jail.

The issue found its way into court last month when Dennis Vickoren asked to be allowed to use legally prescribed medical marijuana to treat his migraine headaches. Vickoren's attorney, Jeni Feinberg, asked Jackson County Circuit Judge Mark Schiveley to issue a court order allowing her client to use marijuana while serving his 30-day sentence for encouraging child sexual abuse. Schiveley declined to grant the request.

There may come a time when medical marijuana use is permitted in jails. But that time is not now, and even if it does eventually happen, a case could be made for not allowing prisoners to smoke the drug behind bars.

While marijuana serves a medical purpose in some circumstances — primarily to relieve pain and ease nausea and lack of appetite — it is also a recreational drug. Allowing its use inside a jail, even for medical reasons, would make it difficult for jail staff to maintain order and security.

Another difficulty is that tobacco smoking is prohibited in jail. It wouldn't be fair to nonsmoking prisoners to be exposed to others' secondhand smoke. Marijuana smoke ought to be in the same category.

Having said that, it is important to note that marijuana need not be smoked. It can be ingested orally.

It might be possible to allow prisoners who have medical marijuana cards to receive the drug in pill form, as they do any other prescription.

But that brings up the real difficulty with the medical marijuana law in Oregon as it is presently constituted.

Voters in this state and several others have seen fit to allow the medical use of marijuana, but the drug remains illegal under federal law, and illegal to use even in Oregon except for those with a doctor's prescription and a medical marijuana card. The state law is ahead of federal law and the pharmaceutical industry.

Smokable marijuana is available in this state only from a volunteer grower with a state permit, not through pharmacies. Dosage levels have not been calculated. Marijuana in edible form is not available through normal pharmaceutical channels.

Until the medical marijuana industry evolves to the point that dosages can be regulated and the drug can reliably be provided in oral form, it makes no sense to permit its use in jails.

Mr. Vickoren will simply have to rely on conventional pain medication to relieve his migraines. Judge Schiveley was correct to deny his request.