Grass Roots

These are heady days in parts of the American West. In November, the citizens of Washington and Colorado voted to legalize marijuana, and when the first of the new laws took effect on Dec. 6, happy tokers celebrated by lighting up beside Seattle’s Space Needle. One group passed around a fat cigarette stuffed with Maui Wowie, which connoisseur Eric Widener, 26, partook of enthusiastically as a friend nearby praised the virtues of the “citrusy, very cerebral” strain. Although Washington’s referendum did not countenance such public consumption, police were instructed not to write tickets. As doobies glowed in a purple Pacific Coast haze, a young couple visiting from Michigan breathed the odor and smiled knowingly. “We just decriminalized it in our city,” says Joe Markham, 25, whose hometown of Grand Rapids decided last month to treat pot possession as a mere civil infraction punishable by a small fine. Thus sigh the winds of change.

A few days later, on Dec. 10, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, a popular brewpub owner before getting into Denver politics, put his signature on Amendment 64, passed last month by his citizens. “Voters were loud and clear on Election Day,” said Hickenlooper, and he was not exaggerating. The margin of victory was more than a quarter of a million votes–larger than Barack Obama’s victory margin over Mitt Romney in the swing state–thanks in part to a canny campaign that called for regulating (and taxing) marijuana just like alcohol. Amendment 64 proponent Mason Tvert exulted in the moment. “From this day forward,” he said, “adults in Colorado will no longer be punished for the simple use and possession of marijuana.”

But after the initial buzz, a question lingered that would make excellent fodder for late-night dorm-room philosophizing over bong hits and Doritos. What difference does this make, really? I mean, like, haven’t the pot dispensaries in Colorado, Washington and 16 other states been bustling for years, thanks to the widespread availability of what’s generously known as “medical” marijuana? Accessing pot in Denver has been so easy that in August the city council voted to ban dope-touting billboards and bus benches. In Washington, lawmakers cracked down on doctors who were offering therapeutic marijuana to otherwise healthy patients complaining of headaches or anxiety.

The loopholes opened by medical-marijuana laws long ago scrambled the strange economics of dope. Supplies of the drug are now so abundant that the grass farmers of California’s famed Emerald Triangle are being hammered by plummeting wholesale prices. Some cities, like Denver, have nearly as many dispensaries as upscale coffee shops. And everything you need to equip a home cannabis garden (other than seeds) can be purchased with one click on Amazon.

Never in the long history of the U.S.’s war on pot–the scare film Reefer Madness, to pick one gaudy data point, was released in 1936, before The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind–has marijuana been so easy to obtain. Whether you prefer to smoke it, sip it, gobble it in a cookie or slather it on in ointment form, America’s grass producers have you covered. And never has the social stigma of marijuana use been milder. Twenty years ago, while running for President, Bill Clinton felt compelled to make a pretzel of himself rather than admit to youthful toking. Compare that with the national shrug and chuckle that greeted biographer David Maraniss’s revelations this year that Barack Obama inhaled so lustily as part of his high school’s “Choom Gang” that he felt inspired to thank his dealer in the pages of his senior yearbook.

In that context, legalization feels like the inevitable next step, and a small one at that. Proponents have been riding such a happy wave of progress that they have seemed almost eager to highlight the many limits that continue to apply. Buyers and consumers must be 21 or older. Like tobacco, dope can’t be smoked in most public spaces. It is illegal to drive under the influence of marijuana. Colleges and universities in Washington and Colorado have no plans to allow the stuff on campus. There will be more restrictions, no doubt, as the states move to regulate the cultivation, distribution, sale and taxation of marijuana. As with alcohol, legalization will entail the licensing of producers, buffer zones for schools, strict product labeling–perhaps even limits on potency.

The very process of regulating a newly legal dope trade, however, has the potential to turn an incremental development into a very big deal. As far as Uncle Sam is concerned, marijuana is still against the law in Washington and Colorado, regardless of the local election results. “In enacting the Controlled Substances Act, Congress determined that marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance,” the Department of Justice noted in a statement issued by Jenny A. Durkan, the U.S. Attorney in Seattle. “Regardless of any changes in state law,” she warned, “growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law.”

Hickenlooper has reached out at least twice to Attorney General Eric Holder asking for guidance. So far, he hasn’t heard much in reply. In January the Colorado legislature will begin developing a framework of laws to regulate the marijuana business, and lawmakers would like to know if the feds intend to tear down what they build. “My sense is that it is unlikely the federal government is going to allow states one by one to unilaterally decriminalize marijuana,” the governor said at a postelection press conference.

Holder’s silence is evidence that the Obama Administration hasn’t decided how to react–yet. While some in federal law enforcement are pushing for a hard line against local legalization–in the form of a lawsuit challenging the power of states to contradict federal law, for example–others prefer a more nuanced approach. One idea is to concentrate on the profiteers. The feds have dealt with medical marijuana by largely ignoring the buyers and users of small amounts while cracking down on large growers and distributors.

Hickenlooper has said he anticipates something similar as the Administration reacts to outright legalization. “Some people think there’s going to be big shops” and large marijuana farms, he says. “It’s hard for me to imagine that happening and having big pot shops if the federal government still views it as illegal,” he adds.

So for the time being, getting legally stoned in Washington and Colorado may remain a mom-and-pop affair, the ultimate in small business, with Uncle Sam blowing the whistle on anyone who seems to be getting rich or powerful from pot. That’s one way to kick the can down the road, but the time won’t be far off when the can is again underfoot. It must have seemed, once upon a time, that a few casinos in the Nevada desert were but an incremental step in a society rife with illegal gambling. But small changes have a way of spreading. Today, some form of gambling is legal in every state except Hawaii and Utah.

Pot is likely to follow the same pattern. When other states get a look at the tax revenue rolling in from legal sales of marijuana, they will hurry to grab a share. Citing statistics compiled by the Colorado Department of Revenue, Brian Vicente, a backer of the Colorado law, notes that medical marijuana generated nearly $50 million in taxes and fees for the state in 2 years. Broad legalization will push that number far higher, he predicts. Consider: an excise tax similar to the one levied on booze could mean that 15% of every marijuana sale flows into state coffers. That’s $40 or more on every ounce of premium grass, at a time when governments are straining to meet their budgets. “We’re also going to serve as a model to the rest of the country,” Vicente says. “We’re going to tax this product. We’re getting it off the street corners and behind the counters, away from kids. We’re going to see tremendous revenue and job creation. I think it’s going to serve as a beacon of light for other states.”

This, as much as shifting mores, may fuel public support for legalization far beyond the borders of Washington and Colorado. According to a Gallup poll, the number of Americans in favor of ending marijuana prohibition has doubled over the past 15 years, leaving the country (what else?) evenly divided. Still larger numbers say the federal government should keep its nose out of state-level decisions to legalize dope.

And so a small change in two Western states bids fair to be a milestone in the history of the country–and another lesson in the difficulties involved in keeping people from their vices. The signs of high times to come are unmistakable, as Vicente notes in victory. “Generally, I think Coloradans realize that marijuana prohibition is a spectacular failure. It failed on almost every front. It was incredibly costly and damaging to people’s lives. It has not led to lower usage rates in 80 years of prohibition. I think people were ready for a change.”