Californians salute legal pot

CUSTOMERS hoping to be among the first in California to buy marijuana legally queued up yesterday, as the arrival of the new year brought with it the broad legalisation of cannabis, two decades after the state was the first to allow pot for medical use.

Just after midnight, some raised joints instead of champagne glasses. Johnny Hernandez, a tattoo artist from Modesto, celebrated by smoking “Happy New Year blunts” with his cousins. “This is something we’ve all been waiting for,” he said. “It is something that can help so many people and there’s no reason why we should not be sharing that.”

Hernandez said he hoped the legalisation of recreational marijuana would help alleviate the stigma some still believe surrounds the use of the drug.

“People might actually realise weed isn’t bad. It helps a lot of people,” he said. The nation’s most populous state joins a growing list of other states, and the nation’s capital, where so-called recreational marijuana is permitted even though the federal government continues to classify pot as a controlled substance, like heroin and LSD.