mistermack wrote:Svartalf wrote:It's gonna be fun when the next Republican president unleashes the DEA on the state...
Yeh. I don't get it. It's still illegal under federal law, but legal to sell it under state law?
Do they both apply, or neither? Do the police just do whatever they feel like? Or the courts?
It is, as of today, legal to possess 1 ounce of pot for residents and 1/4 ounce for non-residents. It's illegal to smoke it in public and the definition of "public" is still being worked out in various communities, which can either allow or ban retail pot sales. Production and sales are closely regulated, including RFID chips on EVERY commercial plant with "seed to sale" tracking required.
For now it's an all-cash business, which concerns law enforcement and dealers, because federal law prohibits banks from accepting as customers those involved in illegal acts, specifically including drug dealing. Yes, it's still illegal under federal law, but Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder have decided not to interfere with state-sanctioned pot sales so long as several conditions are met, which includes preventing export of pot from Colorado, keeping it away from kids, and extraordinarily careful record keeping. But the feds have said that they reserve the right to intervene if things get out of control.
One other little problem is with security at pot shops, which have to have cameras and alarms, but cannot have armed guards because of the federal ban on guns and drugs. This produces a substantial risk of robbery and violence near pot shops because shop owners cannot hire armed security and they cannot deposit the cash in the bank, so pot shops become targets for robbers. I hope they will find a way to change this, and there are efforts to pass laws in Washington DC to allow banks to take pot shops as customers.
It's all very new and the kinks are being worked out minute by minute.
Interestingly, the news tonight said that at a couple of the biggest pot shops that are now open, the majority of people buying are from out of state. They interviewed a couple of guys who drove all the way from Georgia and camped out on the doorstep to be among the first to buy pot legally.
Personally, I don't use pot, but it should have never been made illegal in the first place and I'm glad Colorado has taken the courageous step of making it legal first.
If it even puts a dent in the 10 billion dollar a year "war on some drugs" that costs the lives of about 150 innocent citizens every year from botched SWAT raids it'll be worth it.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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