On New Years Day, 2014, thousands of people lined up at Colorado’s newly-opened recreational retail marijuana stores to take advantage of a new law allowing adult residents to buy an ounce of marijuana, and adult non-residents to buy a quarter ounce.
Legalized recreational marijuana sales and tourism are predicted to generate at least $500 million dollars a year in economic and tax benefits for Colorado.
Among the many people standing in line at marijuana stores are enthusiastic and grateful stoners who’ve driven or flown thousands of miles to purchase legal marijuana for the first time in the United States.
Marijuana growers and sellers see this as a “green rush,” and are geared up to serve the relentless demand for legalized recreational marijuana.
But demand has outstripped supply, and marijuana retailers sold out of their top-shelf marijuana a few hours after legal sales started.
If you’re a marijuana grower or cannabis entrepreneur, Colorado is now the best place to go to increase your marijuana business safety and security while also making it easier for you to grow and provide marijuana for profit.
You want to grow and sell marijuana legally? Go to Colorado, my friends. It’s that simple.
But there is one huge problem with Colorado’s legalization: taxes and other fees.
The government is taking a vicious cut of the profits by mandating steep sales and excise taxes. Forced to add these costs onto the price of retail marijuana, sellers are retailing premium bud at an average of $50-75 an eighth.
Ounces of premium bud are selling for $200-500. In some cases, that’s even more than weed costs in Amsterdam.
It isn’t just the regular growing and selling though. Colorado marijuana tourism is a massive business opportunity for creative entrepreneurs who combine marijuana with other Colorado specialties.
For example, some guys started a Rocky Mountain marijuana ski tour company that caters to people who want to ski and snowboard stoned.
Marijuana users still have to be careful, because public marijuana use is illegal.
And there are marijuana enemies in Colorado, such as a tool named Al Henceroth, who manages a ski resort in Colorado’s Arapahoe Ski Basin.
When he sees people getting high and skiing, he busts them!
The dude even went so far as to blog about how ski slopes are on federal lands so Colorado stoners and marijuana tourists should still be arrested and put in jail for marijuana.
He and other hypocrites claim to be worried that marijuana users might affect the “family-friendly” image of ski resorts.
This from a ski tourism industry that makes money selling beer and hard liquor to skiers and snowboarders.
It’s typical of the anti-marijuana prejudice that backwards people have in Colorado, which I’ve written about before.
And even though Colorado’s state laws legalize marijuana growing and selling, we still see the DEA coming in to harass our industry.
Yes, we’ve legalized marijuana, but we have to still fight back against people like Al Henceroth.
The good news is that marijuana growers and providers now have a better situation than even the best days in The Netherlands.
Not only that, but Colorado marijuana is cleaner, tastier, and better-priced than Dutch coffeeshop weed, and you don’t have to cross international borders to get it.
Colorado is now the world leader in legalized marijuana growing and selling. It’s a true Rocky Mountain High. See you in the mountains at 420!
