Over the past year or so we’ve noted that the decision to tie the status of marijuana and skills games to the budget was unfair and counterproductive.

The concerns we editorialized about were simple: These issues need thorough debate, on their own terms, with lawmakers considering the drawbacks and disadvantages, especially for either legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana.

Concerns about how driving under the influence will be investigated and prosecuted, about the impact on workplaces and employers and how to mitigate unwanted effects, about what legal or decriminalized marijuana means for families, children and the quality of life in neighborhoods and communities all deserve careful, measured consideration.

We are open-minded about where that debate may take Pennsylvania. But its a debate that shouldn’t be contingent on one year’s spending plan.

The budget that attempted to tie the issues together stalled, ultimately reaching its passage about four months past the deadline.

Beginning yet another budget timeline by once again overspending to such an absurd degree that once again the governor’s administration needs to cover the shortfalls with assumptions about marijuana tax revenues or skills games licensing fees is asinine.

We’ve already noted legislators have good reasons to not short-change important debates by treating them as ancillary concerns to their responsibility — and the governor’s responsibility — to pass a budget. We’ve already seen evidence in last years delays that lawmakers agree that such an approach is untenable. In Tuesday’s edition, reporters for Spotlight PA detailed the skepticism that the state Legislature has significantly changed its mind about the issue of legalizing marijuana specifically.