4 years behind Colorado, California to sell pot
KUSA – In the nation’s most populous state, New Year’s Day will usher in a new era of legalized recreational marijuana sales.
YAWN.
Colorado’s been doing this for four years already. In fact, California is borrowing plenty of ideas from Colorado to implement its own legalization under Prop 64. (See, they even stole their ballot question’s number from Colorado!)
Still, with almost 40 million people—legalization in California is an undeniably huge moment in the history of cannabis laws.
And you can put a number on it. Colorado pot shops sold more than $600 million worth of recreational marijuana this year, which will set a new record.
Add an extra zero and then some for California, which expects to open with a $7 billion recreational pot market in 2018.
So, let’s examine what it all means.
WHAT CALIFORNIA MEANS TO COLORADO
If you own a pot shop in Colorado, this could be a bit of a double-edged sword.
Having legal sales in the nation’s largest state makes it a much more difficult task for the federal government to intervene if it wished to do so in the future. That’s a tangible development, since pot remains an illegal schedule 1 drug under federal law.
It also opens the aforementioned mega-sized market to Colorado brands and products. Marijuana companies cannot franchise across state lines, but they can and do sell their brands and techniques through licensing agreements.
On the other hand, Californians wouldn’t need to visit Colorado to experience legal weed—potentially reducing the base of customers for (as well as competing directly with) Colorado’s marijuana tourism industry.
There are some reasons for Colorado’s marijuana industry not to panic. Legal sales continue to grow despite legalized sales coming online in other states, signaling that there may be plenty of room left for market growth as the societal stigma around marijuana changes.
And California residents who really wanted to partake already had access to medical marijuana for years.
Which brings us to…
HOW CALI IS COPYING COLO
Colorado led the way in pioneering marijuana laws and made plenty of adjustments along the way as regulators learned lessons about what works best.
So it’s no surprise that the left coast’s cannabis market will look an awful lot like Colorado’s.
California is converting medical pot shops into recreational shops, letting local governments decide whether to allow marijuana sales, and has a tax structure that’s at least somewhat similar to Colorado’s.
They’re even starting out with rules that Colorado developed over the course of years, such as a requirement to label edible marijuana products with a “THC” emblem.
And just like in Colorado, marijuana users could risk their jobs by using the drug in their off-time.
Employers are allowed to keep their existing drug policies.
HOW THE LEFT COAST IS A LITTLE MORE LIBERAL
California is more liberal in one area that’s been a subject of much debate in Colorado: public use.
While California’s laws generally make open consumption illegal, it does allow local governments the decision on whether marijuana consumption will be allowed inside cannabis shops.
That sets up the possibility that parts of California will have Amsterdam-style hash bars, something that’s illegal in Colorado.
While Denver is experimenting with public-use establishments, they have to be “B.Y.O.P.” under Colorado state law.
California will also open up sales with the option for temporary event permits, which means you might be able to buy marijuana at a 4/20 rally there. You can’t legally buy cannabis in Colorado anywhere except from a licensed shop.
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