Today the Legal sales of marijuana for recreational use have begun in the US state of Colorado.
Dozens of people lined up at some stores in Denver on January 1 to buy up to 28 grams (1 ounce) of marijuana legally for the first time.
in a ballot that coincided with the US presidential election and put it in the vanguard of the push for nationwide legalisation.
"It just makes it an item of commerce, like going into a liquor store," 61-year-old Charles Pierce said at the Denver Kush Club, where people lined up in the wind and sleet for the 8:00am opening.
Colorado is expected to earn $US67 million in tax revenue this year from legal sales of the drug.
It has already approved 348 marijuana business licences state-wide, but local government areas can block approval of the shops if they choose.
While it is now legal to buy the drug, consumption in open and public places is outlawed.
Marijuana for health purposes is legal and regulated in 19 US states.
Supporters hope legality could end police discrimination
Washington state voted to legalise marijuana at the same time Colorado did, but Washington is not slated to open its first retail establishments until later this year.Still, supporters and detractors alike see the two western states as embarking on an experiment that could mark the beginning of the end for marijuana prohibition at the national level.
"By legalising marijuana, Colorado has stopped the needless and racially-biased enforcement of marijuana prohibition laws," Ezekiel Edwards, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Criminal Law Reform Project, said.
Cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under federal law, though the Obama administration has said it will give individual states leeway to carry out their own recreational-use statutes.
Nearly 20 states, including Colorado and Washington, had already put themselves at odds with the US government by approving marijuana for medical purposes.
Opponents warned that legalising marijuana for recreational use could help create an industry intent on attracting underage users and getting more people dependent on the drug.
Comparing the nascent pot market to the alcohol industry, former US Representative Patrick Kennedy, co-founder of Project Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said his group aimed to curtail marijuana advertising and to help push local bans on the drug while the industry was still modest in stature".
ABC/Reuters
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