Colorado -- The world's first state-licensed
marijuana retailers, catering to Colorado's newly legal recreational
market for pot, are stocking their shelves ahead of a New Year's grand
opening that supporters and detractors alike see as a turning point in
America's drug culture.
Possession,
cultivation and private personal consumption of marijuana by adults for
the sake of just getting high has already been legal in Colorado for
more than year under a state constitutional amendment approved by
voters.
But starting January 1, cannabis will be
legally sold and taxed at specially regulated retailers in a system
modeled after a regime many states have in place for alcohol sales - but
which exists for marijuana nowhere outside of Colorado.
For
the novelty factor alone, operators of the first eight marijuana
retailers slated to open on Wednesday morning in Denver and a handful of
establishments in other locations are anticipating a surge in demand
for store-bought weed.
"It will be
like people waiting in line for tickets to a Pink Floyd concert," said
Justin Jones, 39, owner of Dank Colorado in Denver who has run a medical
marijuana shop for four years and now has a recreational pot license.
Jones said he is confident he has enough marijuana on hand for Day One but less sure of inventory levels needed after that.
About
90 percent of his merchandise is in smokable form, packaged in small
child-proof containers. The rest is a mixture of cannabis-infused
edibles, such as cookies, candy and carbonated drinks.
"People seem to prefer smoking," he said.
From Medical To Recreational
Washington
state voters legalized recreational marijuana at the same time Colorado
did, in November 2012, but it has yet to be made commercially available
there.
Pot designated strictly for
medical use has been sold for some time in storefront shops in several
of the nearly 20 states, including Colorado and Washington, that have
deemed marijuana legal for health purposes.
But
Colorado is the first to open retail pot stores, and craft a regulatory
framework to license, tax and enforce its use for recreation.
Outside
of the United States, Uruguay's parliament recently cleared the way for
state-sanctioned marijuana sales, but the South American nation is at
least months away from having a system in place.
The
Netherlands has long had an informal decriminalization policy, with
Amsterdam coffee shops allowed to sell marijuana products to customers.
But back-end distribution of the drug to those businesses remains
illegal.
"It will actually be fully
legal in Colorado, at least under state law, whereas in the Netherlands
it's been tolerated, not actually legal," Ethan Nadelmann, executive
director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a pro-liberalization group, told
reporters earlier this month.
"Colorado
is essentially the first. It's really the first in which this is
explicitly legal and where marijuana is being grown legally, sold
wholesale legally, sold retail legally," Nadelmann said.
"This
is groundbreaking," said Mike Elliot, spokesman for Colorado's Medical
Marijuana Industry Group. "We are way ahead of Washington state,
Amsterdam and Uruguay."
Critics of
liberalized marijuana laws likewise view Colorado's new order as a
landmark, albeit one they see in a more negative light.
Kevin
Sabet, co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a leading
anti-legalization group, said the movement toward ending pot prohibition
is sending the wrong signal to the nation's youth.
Ending Prohibition
"There
will still need to be a black market to serve people who are ineligible
to buy on a legal market, especially kids," Sabet said. "It's almost
the worst of both worlds."
Critics say
the social harms of legalizing pot - from anticipated declines in
economic productivity to a potential rise in traffic and workplace
accidents - will outweigh any benefits.
Legalization
backers point to tax revenues to be gained and argue that
anti-marijuana enforcement has accomplished little but to penalize
otherwise law-abiding citizens, especially minorities.
They
also argue that legalization will free up strained law enforcement
resources and strike a blow against drug cartels, much as repealing
alcohol prohibition in the 1930s crushed bootlegging by organized crime.
But Sabet counters, "We are witnessing the birth of big marijuana," which he compared to the tobacco industry.
Under
Colorado's law, however, state residents can only buy as much as an
ounce of marijuana at a time, while individuals from out of state are
limited to quarter-ounce purchases. State law also limits cultivation to
six marijuana plants per person.
Those
limits were not enough to deter a 30-year-old high school sports coach
who is visiting Colorado from North Carolina but gave his name only as
Matt.
"I don't really drink a whole
lot, but I'd prefer to smoke a little bit and have a good time with the
friends that I hang out with," he told Reuters on Friday. His New Year's
plans include a "Cannabition" pot party in Denver.
Marijuana
remains classified an illegal narcotic under U.S. law. But in a major
policy shift in August, the Obama administration said it would give
states leeway to experiment with pot legalization, and let Colorado and
Washington carry out their new laws permitting recreational use.
The
state has issued a total of 348 recreational pot licenses to businesses
statewide, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue's Marijuana
Enforcement Division.
Of those, 136
are for retail stores, 178 for cultivation operations, 31 for
manufacturing of infused edibles and other sundries, and three are for
testing facilities.
Last month,
Colorado voters approved a combined 15 percent excise and 10 percent
sales tax to be imposed on recreational pot sales, with the first $40
million raised to fund school construction projects.
The
Colorado Legislative Council estimates the marijuana taxation scheme
will generate $67 million annually in tax revenue to state coffers.
Only
people over age 21 can buy recreational pot. Public use of marijuana
remains illegal, as is driving while stoned. The state has set a
blood-THC (the active ingredient in cannabis) limit of
5-nanogram-per-milliliter threshold for motorists.
Other
states are taking a wait-and-see approach to the Colorado and
Washington experiments before they take the leap toward legalization,
said Rachel Gillette, head of Colorado's chapter of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
"Colorado has found an exit strategy for the failed drug war and I hope other states will follow our lead," she said.
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