Legal Recreational Marijuana Draws Lines in Colorado
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Photo by Theo Stroomer/Getty Images(DENVER) — As the sale of recreational marijuana became legal in Colorado on Wednesday, eager buyers with high spirits lined up around stores to ring in the new year with legal tokes.
“We’ve got a line of probably 100 out the door,” Tony, one of the owners of the 3-D Cannabis Center in Denver, told ABC News. “It’s very, very joyous. This is the end of prohibition.”
Tony said the stores are not allowed to give anything away for free and the city officials have come by to make sure they’re not. In order to comply, he’s selling his coffee and hot chocolate for a nickel.
“Things are going perfect,” Russ Hunchar, one of the owners of The Healing House/Urban Cannabis told ABC News. “Everyone is in a great mood. Everybody is happy.”
There is about an hour wait in line outside the Healing House, but Hunchar said people are happy to wait.
He estimates the store has about 30 different strains of marijuana and edibles from three companies.
The edibles include hard candies, chocolate, baked goods, caramels and mints. The strains have names like “Alien OG Kush,” “Cherry Kola,” “Kosher Kush” and “Grape Ape.”
They are selling per gram, Hunchar said. A gram ranges from roughly $11 to $22, depending on the quantity in stock.
That means an ounce, the legal amount that can be purchased at once by a person at least 21 years of age, could go for more than $600. And people are paying.
“I don’t think it’s going to catch on,” Hunchar joked.
“I’ve invested a million-and-a-half dollars and I haven’t had a paycheck in four years, so I’m feeling pretty good about it,” Tony said.
At another licensed store, Altitude Organic Medicine, “budtender” Jaime Petty called the legalization a “boon and a blessing for humankind.”
“Things are going wonderfully,” Petty said. “The mood is great. People are very happy to be buying legal marijuana. They’re lining up for it. It’s very historic and very exciting.”
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