you can always hope for a lenient medical law.
...but if you're going somewhere, go where the gold is
Seeing green! Colorado retail marijuana stores sell $1MILLION in merchandise on first day of legalized pot
Lines extended out the doors as eager consumers stood in line to be among the first legal pot buyers in the world
Twenty-four shops opened on Wednesday alone and hundreds more grower and seller applications have been filed
Authorities watched as the industry was born and few problems arose apart from complaints about pricing and citations for public use
By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 23:19 EST, 2 January 2014 | UPDATED: 23:19 EST, 2 January 2014
Lines out the door and fierce winter weather couldn't keep folks in Colorado from waiting eagerly for their chance to be among the first to legally purchase recreational marijuana on Wednesday.
Post growers in the state sold pounds of the sticky green drug to hordes of eager users and estimate across-the-board sales at $1 million on the first day the law took effect.
Twenty-four pot shops, mostly in Denver, opened in Colorado for the first time on Wednesday and the birth of the first legal marijuana industry managed to go smoothly as the world watched.
While the Netherlands and Amsterdam have long been known as marijuana havens, the drug exists in a legal gray area in the country, having been decriminalized but never legalized as in Colorado.
The South American nation of Uruguay fully legalized pot last year but has yet to implement a production or sales system.
'Everything's gone pretty smoothly,' said Barbara Brohl, Colorado's top marijuana regulator as head of the Department of Revenue.
The agency sent its new marijuana inspectors to recreational shops to monitor sales and make sure sellers understood the state's new marijuana-tracking inventory system meant to keep legal pot out of the black market.
But the watchful eyes of a state at the forefront of world marijuana legalization didn't faze the buyers.
'This feels like freedom at last,' said Amy Reynolds, owner of two Colorado Springs medical pot shops. Reynolds came to Denver to toast the dawn of pot sales for recreational use. 'It's a plant, it's harmless, and now anyone over 21 can buy it if they want to. Beautiful.'
Retail marijuana is being heavily taxed, with a 10 percent tax per sale and a 15 percent excise tax based on the average market rate of the drug.
The state won't have the first round of receipts until late February but it seems clear demand is strong. A trade group Thursday said three of its retail members reported between 600 and 800 customers during the first day. Colorado has projected $67 million in annual marijuana tax revenue.
The only problems reported Wednesday, though, were long lines and high prices. Some shops raised prices or reduced purchasing limits as the day went on. One pot shop closed early because of tight supply. Some shoppers complained they were paying three times more than they were used to.
Colorado has no statewide pricing structure, and by midafternoon, one dispensary was charging $70 for one-eighth of an ounce of high-quality pot. Medical marijuana patients just a day earlier paid as little as $25 for the same amount.
Medical pot users worried they'd be priced out of the market. Colorado's recreational pot inventory came entirely from the drug's supply for medical uses.
'We hope that the focus on recreational doesn't take the focus away from patients who really need this medicine,' said Laura Kriho of the patient advocacy group Cannabis Therapy Institute.
Colorado has hundreds of pending applications for recreational pot retailers, growers and processors. So it's too soon to say how prices would change more people enter the business, increasing supply and competition.
Shoppers waiting in line Wednesday didn't seem fazed by the wait, the prices, or the state and local taxes that totaled more than 25 percent.
'This is quality stuff in a real store. Not the Mexican brick weed we're used to back in Ohio,' said Brandon Harris, who drove from Blanchester, Ohio.
cof