January 1 was a big day in the U.S. for marijuana legalization advocates, as recreational sales began in Colorado, and medical marijuana legalization took effect in four states, including Illinois. While advocates celebrated the end of various forms of marijuana prohibition, their celebrations didn’t come without scrutiny or worry that marijuana prohibition could return.
Since Colorado is the first place in the world to have legalized recreational use and sales of marijuana, the whole world watched as the first sales took place on Wednesday.
While Washington state also legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, legal sales won’t begin until later this spring. And while Uruguay became the first country to legalize marijuana last month, the South American nation has yet to set up its regulatory system.
Andre Barr, 34, was one of several shoppers who stood in line to become one of the first to legally buy weed in the U.S. He said he drove to the Rocky Mountain state from Michigan to be part of the first legal sales, saying it was a “huge deal” for him. Similarly, Amy Reynolds, owner of two Colorado Springs medical pot shops said the sales were “freedom at last,” and referred to marijuana as a harmless plant that now anyone over the age of 21 can buy if they want.
Though the state’s roads were decorated with Colorado law enforcement officials and marijuana inspectors to ensure that the state’s marijuana regulatory rules were followed to the nth degree, very few incidents occurred. With the exception of a few people who were cited for smoking marijuana in public, the main issues that surfaced on Wednesday were long lines, high prices — with one-eighth of an ounce costing around $70 instead of $25 — and reduced purchasing limits as stores struggled to keep inventory in stock.
But with marijuana now widely available throughout the state, and similar legislation on its way in several other states, many who are opposed to marijuana legalization warned that the legal sales would come with serious consequences, especially for youth.
“It’s not just a benign recreational drug that we don’t have to worry about,” said Dr. Paula Riggs, head of the Division of Substance Dependence at the University of Colorado-Denver medical campus.
She and other concerned Coloradans argue that recreational sales will lead to an increase in the drug’s use among youth, more traffic accidents and an increase in the number of people with addiction problems.
While a national survey on teenage drug use sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse released last month found that marijuana use among eighth and 10th graders had slightly increased, use among 12th-graders was down. And although use of alcohol and tobacco slightly dropped among all age groups, marijuana legalization advocates argued that regulation of alcohol and cigarettes is likely what led to the decreased use among teens, and said prohibition of marijuana is obviously failing and in order to curb use, the substance needs to be legalized and regulated.
Kevin Sabet, co-founder of Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana), director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida, who worked in the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy during Barack Obama’s first term, disagrees with legalization and called the recreational sales “the beginning of the era of Big Marijuana,” before comparing the industry to Big Tobacco.
“This is an industry that makes money off addiction,” Sabet said, adding that he was concerned children would be tricked into thinking marijuana is harmless by those in the industry. He pledged to continue fighting legalization efforts in other states, and said his group doesn’t think marijuana “legalization is inevitable.”
But with recreational legalization looking highly likely to appear on the ballot in Alaska this fall, and on the ballot in at least six states in 2016, it’s hard to determine where Sabet’s confidence that the push for marijuana legalization is losing momentum, since the number of Americans who support legalization is at a record high of 58 percent.
The marijuana “experiment”
Although the mainstream media has repeatedly referred to the recreational sale of marijuana as a “retail experiment” that will determine whether marijuana can be safely sold and taxed like alcohol and kept out of the hands of children, legalization advocates say that’s a misguided attitude.
“Making marijuana legal for adults is not an experiment,” said Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project and co-director of the Amendment 64 campaign. “Marijuana prohibition is the experiment, and the results have been abysmal. If we can successfully regulate alcohol, we can surely regulate a less harmful substance like marijuana. Colorado is going to prove that regulating marijuana works, and it won’t be long before more states follow our lead.
“Millions of adults use marijuana in the United States,” he added, “but only in Colorado will they be purchasing it from regulated businesses instead of in the underground market. Marijuana is objectively less harmful than alcohol, and Colorado is the first place in the country to start treating it that way.”
Part of the appeal for legalizing marijuana from a recreational standpoint is that the drug is a substance that is safer than alcohol, and regulation of the substance from seed to sale should lead to an increase in the drug’s quality along with the elimination of pesticides, molds and mildews that black market weed often contains.
Another benefit is that medical marijuana patients in the state no longer have to explain their medical condition anymore to doctors or anyone else in the community. For example, Matt Brown, the owner of the only marijuana tourism company in North America, My 420 Tours, told MintPress earlier this year that thanks to recreational legalization he doesn’t have to explain that he uses marijuana to help with symptoms from his Crohn’s disease.
“I don’t have to explain that using marijuana helps me not take 10 trips to the bathroom a day and that I also find it a fun way to relax at the end of the day,” he said.
Although medical marijuana users in the state have expressed concern about the increased prices of marijuana and how any negative publicity will affect their ability to obtain their medicine, the prices are expected to drop as more retail shops open throughout the year.
And as far as the negative aspects of the retail sales go, how everything will play out remains to be seen, but many point to the controversy that ensued when California first legalized medical marijuana in 1996. Since then 19 other states have legalized medical use, as well as the District of Columbia, and medical marijuana legislation is currently being discussed in several other states.
Long-time coming
Since Colorado and Washington state legalized recreational use of marijuana in 2012, legislation to legalize medical marijuana popped up throughout the country like weeds. One state that passed legislation in August establishing a medical marijuana industry was Illinois.
Although the state’s state-regulated program went into effect on Jan. 1, licensed cultivation and distribution facilities are not yet able to provide marijuana to patients and are not expected to begin sales until late 2014.
While medical marijuana is now technically legal in the state, qualifying patients are not yet able to buy any medicine from a dispensary, nor will they be protected from arrest until the Department of Public Health establishes a patient registry. When that registry will be established remains unknown, but officials estimate it will occur in the next three to four months.
Chris Lindsey, a legislative analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project, urged state officials to work fast so that “seriously ill patients no longer face legal penalties for using medical marijuana.” He pointed out that states with similar laws were able to implement their regulatory medical marijuana systems much quicker, and said “Once this system is in place, seriously ill people who benefit from medical marijuana will finally have legal and reliable access to their medicine.”
Two steps forward, one step back
Passage of legislation legalizing marijuana whether it be for medical or recreational use may be the first battle marijuana advocates have to overcome, but as the situation in Illinois is demonstrating, just because a state has legalized marijuana doesn’t mean the state’s residents are protected from prosecution.
Under federal law marijuana continues to be classified as a Schedule I substance, meaning it’s viewed as a highly addictive drug and has no medicinal value in the eyes of the federal government. Although state law can differ from federal law, when there is a difference, federal law trumps the state law.
Even Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper cautioned his constituents to not “break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly,” since federal law still considers marijuana to be an illegal drug.
Though federal officials gave Colorado and Washington state the ability to try out legalization, they reserved the right to sue the states at a later date if the regulatory framework state officials had implemented was not meeting their standards. While the states have the ability to continue selling recreational and medical marijuana for now, there are several industries that are not following state law out of fear of federal retaliation.
The banking industry for one is prohibited from extending its services to cannabis-related businesses, and armored money trucks are not allowed to transport money from dispensaries any more.
“There is absolutely no justifiable reason to allow this threat to public safety to continue in those states where the regulated sale of marijuana has been made legal,” said Betty Aldworth, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association. “A lack of access to banking services is, quite frankly, the single most dangerous thing about the legal sale of marijuana for medical or social use.”
Similarly, employers don’t have to follow state rules and can fire an employee for using marijuana, even if that person is a medical marijuana patient in a medical marijuana state. So as Coloradans toke up for fun, even if it’s after business hours, many are worried a drug-test could cost them their job. And those marijuana tourists leaving Colorado could run into trouble when they return home.
Part of the concern with marijuana testing is that unlike alcohol, a component of marijuana’s active ingredient THC can be detected in blood and urine for about a month after it was ingested, as the body produces an inactive chemical, Carboxy-THC, to neutralized the psychoactive THC found in the plant.
But since this detail wasn’t taken into account when driving under the influence of marijuana laws were created, mere presence of an inactive THC metabolite can lead to a DUI charge, complete with a Class B misdemeanor and a suspended driver’s license.
Though lawmakers in some of Colorado’s neighboring states such as Utah have proposed changing the metabolite statute to one that only penalizes drivers who are driving impaired, Salt Lake City defense attorney Kelly Fowler says changing the law will be an “uphill battle” since “nobody wants to appear soft on driving impaired.”