Pubdate: Mon, 30 Dec 2013
Source: Palm Beach Post, The (FL)
Section: page A7
Copyright: 2013 The Palm Beach Post
Contact:  http://www.palmbeachpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/333
Author: Kristen Wyatt, Associated Press

COLORADO PREPS FOR LEGAL POT SALES

Retailers Going All Out to Usher in Fledgling Industry.

DENVER (AP) - A gleaming white Apple store of weed is how Andy
Williams sees his new Denver marijuana dispensary.

Two floors of pot-growing rooms will have windows showing the shopping
public how the mind-altering plant is grown. Shoppers will be able to
peruse drying marijuana buds and see pot trimmers at work separating
the valuable flowers from the less-prized stems and leaves.

"It's going to be all white and beautiful," the 45-year-old
ex-industrial engineer explains, excitedly gesturing around what just
a few weeks ago was an empty warehouse space that will eventually
house 40,000 square feet of cannabis strains.

As Colorado prepares to be the first in the nation to allow
recreational pot sales, opening Jan. 1, hopeful retailers like
Williams are investing their fortunes into the legal recreational pot
world - all for a chance to build even bigger ones in a fledgling
industry that faces an uncertain future.

Officials in Colorado and Washington, the other state where
recreational pot goes on sale in mid2014, as well as activists,
policymakers and governments from around the U.S. and across the world
will not be the only ones watching the experiment unfold. So too will
the U.S. Department of Justice, which for now is not fighting to shut
down the industries.

Over the years, pot activists and state governments managed to chip
away at the ban, their first big victory coming in 1996 when
California allowed medical marijuana. Today, 19 other states,
including Colorado and Washington, and the District of Columbia have
similar laws.

Those in the business were nervous, fearing that federal agents would
raid their shops.

"It was scary," recalls Williams, who along with his brother borrowed
some $630,000 from parents and relatives to open Medicine Man in 2009.
"I literally had dreams multiple times a week where I was in prison
and couldn't see my wife or my child. Lot of sleepless nights."

That same year, the Justice Department told federal prosecutors they
should not focus investigative resources on patients and caregivers
complying with state medical marijuana laws - but the department
reserved the right to step in if there was abuse.

In Colorado, the industry took off. Shops advertised on billboards and
radio. Pot-growing warehouses along Interstate 70 in Denver grew so
big that motorists started calling one stretch the "Green Zone" for
its skunky odor of pot.  
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