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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday January 02 2018, @12:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the first-sale-at-4:20 dept.

California launches legal sale of cannabis for recreational use

California will launch the world's largest regulated commercial market for recreational marijuana on Monday, as dozens of newly licensed stores catering to adults who enjoy the drug for its psychoactive effects open for business up and down the state.

It becomes the sixth U.S. state, and by far the most populous, venturing beyond legalized medical marijuana to permit the sale of cannabis products of all types to customers at least 21 years old.

Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Nevada were the first to introduce recreational pot sales on a state-regulated, licensed and taxed basis. Massachusetts and Maine are on track to follow suit later this year.

With California and its 39.5 million residents officially joining the pack, more than one-in-five Americans now live in states where recreational marijuana is legal for purchase, even though cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under U.S. law.

The marijuana market in California alone, which boasts the world's sixth-largest economy, is valued by most experts at several billion dollars annually and is expected to generate at least a $1 billion a year in tax revenue.


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:25AM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:25AM (#616642) Journal

    That doesn't have a lot of bearing on long-term health effects. There are plenty of studies still being done on alcohol, tobacco, coffee, etc. The data for cannabis is lacking due to government restrictions, or tainted due to reefer madness and getting grant money based on saying what certain feds wanted to hear (I know that some researchers, like Donald Tashkin, have flipped and supported cannabis in recent years).

    But it's clear that no matter what the health effects are (they won't be as bad as alcohol or tobacco), it should be decriminalized federally, and it also makes good sense to legalize and tax it (leading to economic benefits, reduction in crime, less money to the cartels, etc.).

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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:34AM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:34AM (#616643) Journal

    FWIW, I have known people who basically couldn't safely use marijuana. So far I've known one and met two briefly. I have no idea how many users I've met. It seems that there is the marijuana equivalent of the alcoholic, though I'm sure the mechanism is different. And I'm *guessing* that the proportion is smaller. None of the three were violent, but all were either extremely unreliable or, the one I knew, abstainers.

    This is such a small sample that it almost doesn't even count as anecdotal, but with no real studies I don't know of any better data.

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