Pubdate: Mon, 30 Dec 2013
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Section: page A2
Copyright: 2013 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper
Contact:  http://www.chron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198
Note: from the Associated Press

POT RETAILER FACES UNCERTAIN FUTURE IN NEW MARKET

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.

"We are building an impressive showcase for the world, to show them
this is an industry," Williams says as the scent of marijuana competes
with the smell of sawdust and wet paint in the cavernous store where
he hopes to sell pot just like a bottle of wine.

Will it be a showcase for a safe, regulated pot industry that
generates hundreds of millions of dollars each year and saves money on
locking up drug criminals, or one that will prove, once and for all,
that the federal government has been right to ban pot since 1937?

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.

But it didn't happen, and the marijuana movement didn't stop. Voters
in Colorado and Washington approved recreational pot in 2012, sold in
part on spending less to lock up drug criminals and the potential for
new tax dollars to fund state programs.

Williams says he's done everything he can to get ready. All he has to
do is open the doors.

"Are we ready to go? Yes," he says. "What's going to happen? I don't
know."  
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D