Often the first thing I’m asked when traveling outside of Colorado is a half-question half-joke about how many people in the state I now call home are stoned.
...It sounds like a bad ’70s movie but this is serious business which other states are watching closely, wondering whether the potential public revenue and private employment benefits are worth the cost and effort of regulation, of reforming state banking laws and pushing for parallel federal reforms, of how to deal with “edibles” (one of the biggest post-legalization issues in Colorado) and the impact of legalization on children — including everything from accidental ingestion to the prescription of high-CBD strains such as “Charlotte’s Web” to treat seizure disorders.
Many high-CBD strains are specifically engineered to be low in THC.)
...The banking issue is critical:
Without an ability to deposit the cash from its sales at a bank, a legal marijuana business becomes an obvious target for violent crime while being tempted toward tax evasion.
But banks, being federally regulated, are wary of becoming involved with a business selling a Schedule I substance directly to consumers.
...I don’t smoke pot and I warn my young children away from it. But the genie of marijuana legalization is not going back into the bottle, nor should it in a free society.
All jokes aside, Colorado is leading the way in understanding both the benefits and perils of legal pot and of its regulatory framework.
Other states, rather than stamping their feet and running to the feds, should watch this laboratory of democracy and learn from our success and our temporary failures.
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