When Washington State made a leap into the future in 2012—no longer arresting people for cannabis possession, no longer treating the black-market economy as if it didn’t exist—there were a lot of unanswered questions. Would the federal government block state law? How would the state license pot growers and retailers? Would high-school students start smoking more weed than they already do? Would customers be willing to pay the hefty taxes?
No one knew the answers to these questions because no locality in the world had ever done what Washington was attempting to do. Places like the Netherlands and Portugal had effectively legalized weed but, much like our own state’s decades-old medical cannabis program, those places made no attempt to actually regulate the product. Colorado was making similar moves at the same time we were, but their ballot measure passed the same day ours did.
