Posted on 07/08/2014 11:00:17 AM PDT by PoloSec
BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) Washington on Tuesday became the second state to allow people to buy marijuana legally in the U.S. without a doctor's note as eager customers who lined up outside stores made their purchases and savored the moment.
People began buying marijuana at 8 a.m. at Top Shelf Cannabis, one of two Bellingham stores that started selling the drug as soon as it was allowed under state regulations. Several dozen people waited outside before the doors opened at the shop in this liberal college town of about 80,000 north of Seattle.
The first three customers in line were residents of Kansas, in Bellingham for their grandfather's 84th birthday. Sarah Gorton, 24, of Abilene, Kansas, came with her younger brother Robbie, as well as her boyfriend.
"It's just a happy coincidence and an opportunity we're not going to have for a long time," said Sarah Gorton, a 24-year-old with dreadlocks and homemade jewelry. "I'm really thrilled to be a part of something that I never thought would happen."
Gorton's boyfriend, 29-year-old Cale Holdsworth, made the first purchase: two grams of pot for $26.50. As customers applauded, he held his brown bag aloft and said, "This is a great moment."
The start of legal pot sales in Washington marks a major step that's been 20 months in the making.
Washington and Colorado stunned much of the world by voting in November 2012 to legalize marijuana for adults over 21, and to create state-licensed systems for growing, selling and taxing the pot. Sales began in Colorado on Jan. 1.
Washington issued its first 24 retail licenses Monday. An Associated Press survey of the licensees showed only about six planned to open Tuesday: two in Bellingham, one in Seattle, one in Spokane, one in Prosser and one in Kelso.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
They will all soon have the IQ of Spiccoli, if not already.
Already there...why else would these idiots in my home state make it legal?
Just another reason I left Seattle (after 45 years) in 2011.
How’s that big dig west going. :-D
http://www.livescience.com/26247-does-pot-lower-iq.html
Still a real bad idea for adolescents to us MJ, causal effect on IQ or not.
I felt like leaving WA after queer marriage was legalized, but since then one state after another has gone down due to liberal judicial activism anyway.
Legal MJ doesn’t bother me, but I recognize that chronic use and adolescent use is a really bad thing.
If adults decide to smoke something that grows out of the ground (like tobacco) why shouldn’t they? It’s not processed like alcohol or other hard drugs, a bud is clipped off a plant, dried and lit up - what’s your problem? God grew it, I smoke it, and that settles it. William F. Buckley was a toker and it didn’t seem to affect his intellect.
It is not the judges decisions that bother me. They do what they do. But when the people of the state do it, that is different.
I left Seattle for two reasons: Politics and traffic.
We voted to build the kingdome by Southcenter. It went to Dearborne. We voted to not build Safeco Field, so they built it anyway.
To be fair, being in commercial real estate in Seattle in the early 80’s I was exposed to so much cronie politics that it turned my stomach.
We really don't have those local issues in SE WA so I guess I'll stay put.
As opposed to legal alcohol which is good for you. Never caused a problem.
A victory for states’ rights & the free market.
Yeah. Spent a fair amount of time in Dayton and Moses Lake...
I just wanted more of a change and I really like green.
I'm not completely comfortable with that argument due to plants like opium (poppies), coca, really intoxicating mushrooms, etc. With the first two, the temptation to process/refine is great due to tolerance effects. That's not so much the case with cannabis, fortunately.
Well, then you'd like our new pot store in Prosser!
And will vote en masse for Dems.
Why? Some day I might purchase a small amount of MJ but I certainly won’t be voting for dems. Back at the time of the referendum, the vote did not split along party lines. Pro-legalization votes came from all factions.
Smoking dope makes one a liberal.
Cannabis is a highly medicinal plant with more active compounds than any other. Our body uses internal cannabinoids for practically every function and the cannabis plant is very symbiotic with mammals and birds.
Banning the medical research of cannabis was a crime against humanity. Of course it all could have been the intent of the opium industry since dozens of cannabis medications touted as opium alternatives were patented just 1 year before hemp prohibition.
William F Buckley was not a dope smoker.
I know what you are referring to and your representation of it as Buckley as a pot head is typical of the delusional thinking that dope smoking induces.
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