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Colorado has had legal pot now for a long time (MMJ). There are dispensaries everywhere, on my way in to work downtown I pass three on a 2 mile stretch after getting off the highway before getting to the office. Recreational is really no different than MMJ, it's just going to take some time for places to finish going through all the hoops of a retail license. There were only 20 or so retail shops that were able to sell on Jan 1, and they're reporting they made $1,000,000 in sales on the first day between them. It is definitely going to be a huge industry.
I was finally able to get into a store and buy some on Saturday. I swung by places wed-fri but every single one had massive lines and I didn't want to wait. I don't even smoke but just wanted to go buy some to be apart of it and experience it. Saturday I was downtown for the Avalanche game and there was a big snow storm - so after the game we walked over to a shop that was pretty close to see if there was a line (and there wasn't). It was actually a disappointment from what I had been expecting. I had been imagining walking into a room with glass shelves everywhere and weed all over the place, with people behind the counter that were going to give me all sorts of ridiculous details about each strain they had. However the places have been so overrun with people the experience was far different.
Basically we walked into a room and had to go stand in line at one desk on the right side of the room. This was the ID check line, and the girl there was checking IDs and giving a ticket to those who were valid. From there you could relax in the room or go wait in the other line, which was a line into the "weed room". Once into the weed room there were just two lines going towards the back of the room, first you got into the right line which went to the weed table. At the weed table they had about 12 big glass jars each with their own strain in them - you told one of the people at this table which strains you wanted and how much. Those people started to package up what you asked for and told you to head back to the other line. The other line was the purchase line, and once you got to the front of it they had your purchase ready and took your money. We bought an 8th of "Purple Trainwreck" for $60 - which is very expensive. We picked that one cause it was literally bluish-purple compared to all the other stuff. Because there are so few retail shops open right now they know they can get away with the high prices - specially because there are people like me just buying it for the novelty of it. Once more places open up and there is more supply to meet demand the prices will subside to what they were with MMJ and you'll be able to get better deals than on the street.
I've seen pictures of MMJ dispensaries and was absolutely excited to have a "New Amsterdam" type of experience, however this was not that. It could have simply been the place I ended up going to, but it also had a lot to do with the fact that the few places that actually have a retail license have been utterly swarmed with customers. Again, I don't even smoke but I think it's really cool what our state is doing - it's a huge progressive step forward in civil liberties - something we rarely get to see from our government. And the amount of revenue this is going to bring in will just be astounding.
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