Hundreds queue in cold to buy pot for pleasure
DENVER – The world’s first state-licensed dagga retailers legally permitted to sell the drug for recreational use opened for business in Colorado this week with long lines of customers, marking a new chapter in America’s drug culture.
About three dozen former medical dagga dispensaries newly cleared by state regulators to sell pot to consumers interested in nothing more than its mood-altering properties began welcoming customers as early as 8am. Hundreds of patrons, many huddling outside in the bitter cold and snow for hours, queued up to be among the first buyers.
“This is a historic moment,” Jacob Elliott, 31, said in line outside the 3D Cannabis Centre in Denver. “I never thought it would happen.”
The highly anticipated New Year’s Day opening launched an unprecedented commercial market that Colorado officials expect will ultimately gross $578-million (about R5.8-billion).
Possession, cultivation and private personal consumption of dagga by adults for the sake of just getting high has already been legal in Colorado for more than a year.
However, as of Wednesday, dagga was being legally produced, sold and taxed in a system modelled after a regime many states have in place for alcohol sales but which exists for dagga nowhere in the world outside of Colorado.
Even in the Netherlands, where some coffee shops and nightclubs are widely known to sell cannabis products with the informal consent of authorities, back-end distribution of the drug to those businesses remains illegal.
Customer number one at Botana Care in Denver was Jesse Phillips, 32, an assembly-line worker who had camped outside the shop since 1am.
“I wanted to be one of the first to buy pot and no longer be prosecuted for it. This end of prohibition is long overdue,” Phillips said.
A cheer rose from about 100 fellow customers as Phillips made his purchase, a 3.5-gram sampler pack containing four strains of weed – labelled with names such as “King Tut Kush” and “Gypsy Girl” – that sold for $45 (almost R500) including tax.
Shop owner Robin Hackett, 51, said she had 23 kilograms of product on hand and, to avoid a supply shortage, the shop would limit purchases to quarterounces, including joints, raw buds, cannabis-infused edibles such as pastries or candies, and even infused soaps, oils and lotions.
Like other stores, Botana Care also stocked related wares, including pipes, rolling papers and bongs.
Voters in Washington state voted to legalise dagga at the same time Colorado did, in November 2012, but Washington is not slated to open its first retail establishments until later this year.
Supporters and detractors alike see the two western states as setting a course that could mark the beginning of the end for dagga prohibition at the national level.
Critics say anticipated social harms of legalisation, from declines in economic productivity to a rise in traffic and workplace accidents, outweigh any benefits.
They also warn that legalising recreational use could help create an industry intent on attracting underage users and getting more people dependent on the drug.