Hundreds of marijuana users line up at Colorado stores as state becomes the first to allow sales for recreational use

  • Thousands celebrate Colorado becoming the first state in America to legally sell marijuana for recreational use
  • Across Denver, cannabis 'End of Prohibition Parties' got underway
  • Sean Azzariti, 32, a former Marine and veteran of two tours of Iraq will become the first legal customer in the nation's history
  • He has become the face of the legalization campaign after turning to marijuana to treat his PTSD
  • So far, 136 stores have been granted licenses across the state to sell recreational cannabis
  • 78 marijuana cultivation facilities have been licensed by the state
  • The legalization is not universal - 33 cities and towns across the state opted out of the new laws
  • But smoking marijuana in public remains illegal
  • The most likely to pass that legislature next are Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont, experts say

By Laura Collins In Denver

PUBLISHED: 03:10 EST, 1 January 2014 | UPDATED: 14:43 EST, 1 January 2014


As a group they're not known for their get up and go, but hundreds of marijuana users stood in line before dawn as Colorado entered history as the first state in America to license the sale of the drug for recreational use today.

More than 200 customers stood in the snow before the doors of 3D Cannabis Centre, Denver opened at 8am and the first sale was made.

For some it was the continuation of the party that had started at midnight when, firing up bongs and cheering in a cloud of marijuana smoke, partiers celebrated as midnight passed and Colorado's Prohibition on Marijuana officially came to an end.

Damian Stasek, left, and Sterling Hamilton, right, celebrate being the second and third persons, respectively, to legally buy recreational marijuana at the BotanaCare store in Northglenn on January 1

Damian Stasek, left, and Sterling Hamilton, right, celebrate being the second and third persons, respectively, to legally buy recreational marijuana at the BotanaCare store in Northglenn on January 1

Customer Adam Hartle smiles as he makes a cash transaction, one of the first to buy retail marijuana at 3D Cannabis Center, which opened as a legal recreational retail outlet in Denver

Customer Adam Hartle smiles as he makes a cash transaction, one of the first to buy retail marijuana at 3D Cannabis Center, which opened as a legal recreational retail outlet in Denver

The line started in pre-dawn and grew far down the street before the Lodo Wellness Center, a pot dispensary in Denver, Colorado on January 1

The line started in pre-dawn and grew far down the street before the Lodo Wellness Center, a pot dispensary in Denver, Colorado on January 1

Customers sniff marijuana samples at the Denver Discreet Dispensary in Denver, Colorado, in January 1, 2014

Customers sniff marijuana samples at the Denver Discreet Dispensary in Denver, Colorado, in January 1, 2014

In downtown Denver close to 600 supporters of Amendment 64 did so with an ‘End of Prohibition Party,’ - one of several that took place across the city - echoing scenes of the 1933 festivities that marked the end of alcohol prohibition in America.

Flapper girls danced, a swing band played and hundreds of balloons tumbled from the ceiling as, at midnight, a banner declaring: ‘Cannabis Prohibition is Over!' unfurled to roars from the crowd.

Smoking marijuana in public remains illegal but, according to organizers David Maddenka, Executive Editor of The Hemp Connoisseur magazine and Brett Mouser, Founder and CEO of Mahatma Extreme Concentrates, this was a private party.

 

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Back in 1933 the once forbidden liquor was consumed hungrily and excessively in newly legitimate Speak Easys.

It may be harder to raise a toast with a spliff, bong or vaporizer but all were in evidence and the party balloons, and some of the guests, floated in air thick with the scent of weed.

Cheri Hackett, center, co-owner of the Botana Care marijuana store celebrates just before opening her doors to customers for the first time in Northglenn, Colorado January 1, 2014

Cheri Hackett, center, co-owner of the Botana Care marijuana store celebrates just before opening her doors to customers for the first time in Northglenn, Colorado January 1, 2014

Around 200 customers wait outside 3D Cannabis Center on January 1 to purchase newly legalized recreational marijuana in Denver, Colo., where promptly at 8:00 a.m.

Around 200 customers wait outside 3D Cannabis Center on January 1 to purchase newly legalized recreational marijuana in Denver, Colo., where promptly at 8:00 a.m.

People wait in line to be among the first to legally buy recreational marijuana at the Botana Care store in Northglenn

People wait in line to be among the first to legally buy recreational marijuana at the Botana Care store in Northglenn

Sean Azzariti, a former Marine who served in the Iraq war and has post-traumatic stress disorder, smiles as he makes a cash transaction, the first to buy retail marijuana at 3D Cannabis Center, which opened as a legal recreational retail outlet in Denver, on Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Sean Azzariti, a former Marine who served in the Iraq war and has post-traumatic stress disorder, smiles as he makes a cash transaction, the first to buy retail marijuana at 3D Cannabis Center, which opened as a legal recreational retail outlet in Denver, on Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Darren Austin and son Tyler of Decatur, Georgia wait outside the Denver Discreet Dispensary to purchase marijuana in Denver, Colorado

Darren Austin and son Tyler of Decatur, Georgia wait outside the Denver Discreet Dispensary to purchase marijuana in Denver, Colorado

 

'Cigarette girls' handed out free vaporizers - the electric cigarette of the cannabis world.

Police in the eight Colorado towns allowing recreational pot sales were stepping up patrols to dispensaries in case of unruly crowds

Denver International Airport placed signs on doors warning fliers they can't take the drug home in their suitcases.

As Mr Maddenka urged his guests to celebrate the end of prohibition, 80 years after the end of prohibition, across town delivery trucks filled with marijuana laced edibles, drinks and concentrate, unloaded their goods at the 3D Cannabis Center where the first official sale took place this morning.

Speaking to MailOnline 3D Cannabis Centre owner, Toni Fox explained: ‘It’s a rush to make sure that the product is there on the shelves to sell when we open our doors at 8am.

‘Some of the licenses were so late to come through that people are literally in the kitchen baking up batches of truffles and cookies to ship to arrive with us before dawn.’

Mrs Fox and her staff had spent New Year’s Eve tagging each of the 1200 or so plants grown at her facility with the Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags now mandatory under state law.

‘This is brand new territory to us,’ she admitted. ‘But when my husband and I started this dispensary three and a half years ago this day was always the goal.’

High times: Bill Chengelis, (left), and Chloe Villano enjoy a smoke just before midnight. 'Prohibition of the 21st Century,' as many are calling it, is happening in Colorado as the state allows the recreational sale of marijuana on January 1, 2014

High times: Bill Chengelis, (left), and Chloe Villano enjoy a smoke just before midnight. 'Prohibition of the 21st Century,' as many are calling it, is happening in Colorado as the state allows the recreational sale of marijuana on January 1, 2014

Partygoers take turns smoking concentrated marijuana from a pipe during a Prohibition-era themed New Year's Eve party

Partygoers take turns smoking concentrated marijuana from a pipe during a Prohibition-era themed New Year's Eve party

Police in the eight Colorado towns allowing recreational pot sales were stepping up patrols to dispensaries in case of unruly crowds

Police in the eight Colorado towns allowing recreational pot sales were stepping up patrols to dispensaries in case of unruly crowds

Partygoers celebrate the start of a new year during a Prohibition-era themed New Year's Eve party celebrating the start of retail pot sales, at a bar in Denver

Partygoers celebrate the start of a new year during a Prohibition-era themed New Year's Eve party celebrating the start of retail pot sales, at a bar in Denver

The State Marijuana Enforcement Division mailed out licenses to 136 marijuana stores on Monday – 102 of them in Denver.

As well as the stores, 31 producers of marijuana infused products and 178 marijuana cultivation facilities have been licensed by the state.

All of the newly licensed dispensaries are already providers of medicinal marijuana and no businesses catering only for recreational users can start for the first year of this new system.

Colorado has more than 500 medical marijuana dispensaries but only 160 applied to sell recreational pot.

According to Mike Elliott, 32, Executive Director of the Medical Marijuana Industry Group, the city and state licensing process ‘is difficult and cumbersome.’

The first official customer to buy marijuana from a Denver dispensary on January 1 was  Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Sean Azzariti, 32.

The former Marine suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a condition not protected under Colorado’s existing laws covering the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Mr Azzariti was also the face of the Yes on 64 Campaign.

Marcus Tvert, Co-Director of Yes on 64 and the Marijuana Policy Project, said there was nothing cynical in the decision to have Mr Azzariti as the face of the campaign or the first person through the doors of the dispensary.

In downtown Denver close to 600 supporters of Amendment 64 celebrated with an 'End of Prohibition Party'

In downtown Denver close to 600 supporters of Amendment 64 celebrated with an 'End of Prohibition Party'

Decadent: Errin Reaume, (center), says she'll be enjoying recreational smoke in her home to celebrate the legal selling of the drug in Colorado

Decadent: Errin Reaume, (center), says she'll be enjoying recreational smoke in her home to celebrate the legal selling of the drug in Colorado

Brady Candler, 25, lights up. Smoking marijuana in public remains illegal

Brady Candler, 25, lights up. Smoking marijuana in public remains illegal

Thousands celebrated as midnight passed and Colorado's Prohibition on Marijuana officially came to an end

Thousands celebrated as midnight passed and Colorado's Prohibition on Marijuana officially came to an end

A bartender serves drinks during a Prohibition-era themed New Year's Eve party

A bartender serves drinks during a Prohibition-era themed New Year's Eve party

It was not, he said, any attempt to ennoble the drug at a moment when Colorado is under such scrutiny. Nor, he said, was it a conscious effort to in some way deflect critics' concerns that many of the new customers will be kids simply wanting to get baked.

He said: ‘It really was just a matter of highlighting him and pointing up the fact that there are going to be lots of people who benefit from this, not just people wanting to relax and get high but people who want to use it for therapeutic reasons that weren’t covered and protected under medicinal marijuana legislation.’

Customers of all ages and tastes were represented in the lines in front of Denver's dispensaries.
Twenty four year old Aaron Flores from Texas traveled to Denver with family but admitted he had extended his stay to make the most of Colorado's new marijuana laws.

He said: 'It's awesome. You don't see anything like this in Texas. In Texas it’s not even decriminalized.

'You can lose financial aid and your chance for a place in college if you get caught just in possession in Texas.

'I can’t see anything changing in Texas for, like, ten years.'

Mr Flores said he planned to buy edibles and spend the rest of the day on the couch, 'just chilling.'

Jen Rog, 34, also stood in line though she said, she didn't care if there wasn't 'a scrap of cannabis left' by the time she and her husband Ray and one-year-old son Everett made it through the doors at 3D Cannabis Centre.

At the opposite end of the using spectrum from Mr Flores, Mrs Rog moved from New York to Denver this summer – a move motivated entirely by the imminent enforcement of Amendment 64.

A marijuana activist for the past decade she said: 'It's hard to get progress in New York. When I had a kid it changed the way I saw things.

Face of change: For Sean Azzariti, 32, a former Marine and veteran of two tours of Iraq, today is the culmination of a fight which has been both deeply personal and highly public

Face of change: For Sean Azzariti, 32, a former Marine and veteran of two tours of Iraq, today is the culmination of a fight which has been both deeply personal and highly public

Final preparations: Employees of 3D Cannabis Center package retail marijuana ahead of 'Green Wednesday'

Final preparations: Employees of 3D Cannabis Center package retail marijuana ahead of 'Green Wednesday'

'I just didn't want him growing up in an environment where it wasn't tolerated.

'I have a red card, I'm registered for medicinal marijuana so this doesn't change my situation but I was so emotional on the drive here and just waiting here in line I feel emotional.'

She explained: 'Prohibition has hurt society so much, it's caused violence and ripped family's apart and criminalized people.

'This is such an incredible day. I hope it's just the beginning.'

As far as Mr Tvert is concerned: ‘Making marijuana legal for adults is not an experiment.
‘Marijuana prohibition is the true experiment and the results have been abysmal.’

He added: ‘Colorado is going to prove that regulating marijuana works, and it won’t be long before more states follow our lead.’

Speaking shortly before the first legal sale Mr Tvert predicted that a series of states would follow Colorado's lead.

He said: ' We expect the first to be Alaska - local activists have gathered more signatures than they need for the ballot and we expect come August it will be the third state to legalize marijuana.'

Mr Tvert went onto reveal that initiatives in Oregon may come to fruition if not next year than in 2016.

He added that Colorado is supporting ballots in six further states: Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana and Nevada.

More than half of all American states have marijuana legislature in process. The most likely to pass that legislature next are, according to Mr Tvert, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont.

According to Mr Tvert: 'Today there will be people around the country buying marijuana but only in Colorado will they be buying it places like this, legally, safely and not from the black market.'

But amid the celebration, the partying and the optimistic talk of change rolling out nation - even world - wide, City of Denver Council President Mary Beth Susman sounded a note of caution.

Get high responsibly: The authorities in Denver are keen to spell out the exact laws after the historic change

Get high responsibly: The authorities in Denver are keen to spell out the exact laws after the historic change

Ms Susman voted against Amendment 64 though she favours decriminalization of marijuana.
She said: ‘I hope that with this the drug will become something not too exotic and special in time.

There’s lots of reasons to come to Colorado, not just pot.

‘And if the bad seems to outweigh the good then we have the authority to stop the sale.’

Thirty-three cities and areas in Colorado have opted out of Amendment 64 and voted to ban the sale of recreational pot in their communities.

Ms Susman said: ‘We have the same right to make tougher laws or to stop sale if we feel we need to.'

But however measured Ms Susman may be as Amendnent 64 makes history of cannabis prohibition in Colorado, this morning her words were destined to be lost in a fug of revelry.

For marijuana's many advocates here, January 1st has been a long time coming and now that it has finally arrived it's a high point they are determined to enjoy.
 


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What happy looking people, beats seeing people killing their livers (and destroying their families) with alcohol.

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How about making cannabis oil available to people suffering with cancers.........been proven to work on many kinds of cancer and to help relieve pain.

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How about making cannabis oil available to people suffering with cancers.........been proven to work on many kinds of cancer and to help relieve pain.

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I need to go to Colorado ;)

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I honestly cannot deal with the pure idiocy of some of the comments on here. People really have no idea do they. I don't even know where to begin. Gives me little hope that we will see sense and legalise it at least for medicinal use over here.

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I honestly cannot deal with the pure idiocy of some of the comments on here. People really have no idea do they. I don't even know where to begin. Gives me little hope that we will see sense and legalise it at least for medicinal use over here.

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Wont see many of them fighting police, vomiting in the street, or sleeping in the bus stops with their mini skirts riding up.

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Expensive habit. The asking price for one ounce is $472. Back in the 1960s, you could get 2.2 pounds for $200!

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Its a big liberal social experiment that is doomed to failure

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And these pot heads have easy access to fire arms, when there brains are mashed

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AND SO DO ALCOHOLICS! I'd much rather have a stoned person with a gun than a drunk person with a gun!

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I'd rather stand in the company of stoned gun owners than drunk gun owners.

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