Pot finally legal in the home of 1960s ‘free love’
● New law brought in two decades after California allowed drug for medical use
Marijuana has officially become legal in America’s most populous state.
California welcomed the new year yesterday with the legal sale of recreational pot for the first time.
The drug is legal to purchase in the state for adults aged 21 and older. Individuals are able to grow up to six plants and possess as much as an ounce of the drug.
Retailers in West Hollywood were among the first of about 90 businesses to receive state licences for the drug.
The arrival of the new year in California has brought with it broad legalisation of marijuana, a much-anticipated change that comes two decades after the state was the first to allow the drug for medical use.
The US’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.
Marijuana is now legal in California for adults aged 21 and older, and individuals can grow up to six plants and possess as much as anounce of the drug. But finding a retail outlet to buy non-medical pot in California will not be easy, at least initially.
Only about 90 businesses received state licences to open on New Year’s Day.
They are concentrated in San Diego, Santa Cruz, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Palm Springs area.
Los Angeles and San Francisco are among the many cities where recreational marijuana will not be available straight away because local regulations were not approved in time to start issuing city licences needed to get state permits. Fresno, Bakersfield and Riverside are among the communities that have adopted laws forbidding recreational marijuana sales.
For those who worked for this day to come, the shift offered joyful relief.
“We’re thrilled,” said Khalil Moutawakkil, founder of Kindpeoples, which grows and sells weed in Santa Cruz.
“We can talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of the specific regulations, but at the end of the day it’s a giant step forward, and we’ll have to work out the kinks as we go.”
The state banned “locoweed” in 1913, according to a history by the National Organ isation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the cannabis advocacy group.
The first attempt to undo that by voter initiative in 1972 failed, but three years later felony possession of less than an ounce was downgraded to a misdemeanour.
In 1996, over the objections of law enforcement, Bill Clinton’s drug tsar and three former presidents, California voters approved marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Twenty years later, voters approved legal recreational use and gave the state a year to write regulations for a legal market that would open in 2018.
Today, 29 states have adopted medical marijuana laws.
In 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalise recreational marijuana.
Since then, five more states have passed recreational marijuana laws, including Massachusetts, where retail sales are scheduled to begin in July.
Even with other states as models, the next year is expected to be a bumpy one in California as more shops open and more stringent regulations take effect on the strains known as Sweet Skunk, Trainwreck and Russian Assassin.
The California Police Chiefs Association, which opposed the 2016 ballot measure, remains concerned about intoxicated drivers, the risk to young people and the cost of policing the new rules in addition to an existing black market.
“There’s going to be a public health cost and a public safety cost enforcing these new laws and regulations,” said Jonathan Feldman, a legislative advocate for the chiefs.
“It remains to be seen if this can balance itself out.”
At first, cannabis shops will be able to sell marijuana harvested without full regulatory controls.
But eventually the state will require extensive testing for potency, pesticides and other contaminants.
A programme to track all marijuana from seed to sale will be phased in, along with other protections such as childproof containers.