The center of the movement to legalize pot is in a red sandstone building a few blocks from Colorado’s state capitol in Denver. The activists who work there call it the marijuana mansion. Sprawling and a little shabby, with stained glass and dormer windows, it houses some of the country’s top cannabis lawyers, as well as a policy group that advocates for the reform of pot laws and the industry’s growing trade association. On the first Friday in January—Day 3 of Colorado’s grand experiment with retail pot sales—Christian Sederberg, an attorney who helped implement the law, was lounging in a room off the mansion’s foyer, exulting in the success of its debut. “The rollout’s gone amazingly well, and we knew it would,” he said, leaning back against a brown leather sofa as sunlight streamed through the windows. “We’re on the right side of history.” It may be too soon to say that, but Colorado has certainly made history. On Jan. 1, it became the only state in the world to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana to anyone over 21. At 8 a.m. on New Year’s Day, as most of the country slept off their hangovers, smokers were lined up in a light snow for the grand opening of Denver’s retail pot shops. Customers were happy to wait for hours and pay high prices for their chance to legally purchase taxed, tested and locally grown strains like Bubba Kush and Sour Diesel. Businesses say they banked $1 million on the first day, even though only a few dozen stores were ready to open their doors. And despite warnings that it would unleash reefer madness, the opening days went off almost without a hitch. The early success of pot’s pilot program was ushered in by a phenomenon almost as rare: a government working as it should. Colorado’s Amendment 64 passed in Nov. 2012 with 55% of the vote—a mandate that belied a lack of institutional support. The healthy margin was driven by a grassroots campaign that cast marijuana as less harmful than alcohol, … Continue reading Why Legal Weed is Working in Colorado