Before the 2019 Legislature convened, the state Democratic Party listed legalizing recreational marijuana among its top three priorities for the session.

It seemed cockeyed to see it prioritized ahead of affordable housing, homelessness, climate change, health care, election reform and other pressing issues that were much further down the list or not included at all.

As often happens in politics, Democrats and other interest groups jumping on the recreational marijuana bandwagon were confusing a shiny new thing with a priority.

It was good to see House and Senate leaders make the sober decision, so to speak, to set recreational marijuana aside this year while awaiting further clarity on an issue that’s still evolving.

House Majority Leader Della Au Belatti said she believes recreational pot eventually will be legalized in Hawaii but said the proper path is taking the time to carefully vet the uncertainties and making sure it’s done right.

With marijuana still illegal under federal law and other states having growing pains with recreational pot, it makes no sense for Hawaii to rush this year to weigh the pros and cons and devise a complex system for regulating and taxing pakalolo.

Better for legislators to focus on greater concerns while moving more basic pot bills, such as decriminalizing possession of small amounts of the drug and improving the state’s medical marijuana program.

Waiting lets us learn from the experiences of other states that have recently legalized recreational marijuana and see how efforts to change federal law shake out.

Hawaii’s regulated medical marijuana program is only a few years old and has proved to be somewhat of a bureaucratic morass; some state-licensed dispensaries haven’t even opened.

What’s the point of expanding so quickly into a much larger and trickier recreational marijuana regulatory program before we’ve worked out all the bugs with medical pot?

Our medical marijuana law is so liberal in defining qualifying health conditions that virtually any adult willing to go through the simple process of obtaining a state card — even tourists — can already buy marijuana legally for whatever use they wish.

There’s also the fine line of the state moving beyond legalizing marijuana to promoting its use in order to fill tax coffers; many questions remain about marijuana’s safety, and large-scale studies to answer them are just beginning.

Revenue benefits of recreational marijuana are somewhat overblown as proponents gush about hundreds of millions in marijuana taxes collected in bigger states such as Colorado and California.

With our smaller population, various estimates put Hawaii’s likely annual tax take at $20 million to $50 million, with 30 percent going to abuse prevention under the Senate bill and more paying for marijuana’s regulatory bureaucracy.

It hardly supports a rush to cash in on pot.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.