Jacob Sullum: Colorado’s Shadow Tourist Boom

For
cannabis consumers accustomed to the black market’s meager
selection and iffy quality, Colorado’s state-licensed dispensaries
are a revelation: dozens of strains, each with a distinctive
bouquet, fresh enough that you can smell the difference.
Denver-area budtenders, who say tourists account for most of their
recreational business, are used to amazed reactions, reminiscent of
the scene in Moscow on the Hudson where Robin Williams,
playing a Soviet defector, encounters an American supermarket for
the first time. But once a visitor settles on a gram of Budderface
or a quarter-ounce of Cinderella 99, he has a problem: Where can he
smoke it? It turns out there is no easy answer to that
question.

Colorado’s cannabis consumption conundrum illustrates a broader
pattern in the state’s approach to marijuana regulation. Amendment
64, the 2012 ballot initiative that legalized marijuana for
recreational use, declared that “marijuana should be regulated in a
manner similar to alcohol.” But in several important respects,
including rules for advertising, packaging, sales, and consumption,
the state’s treatment of marijuana is quite different from its
treatment of alcohol.

To some extent, this divergence reflects marijuana’s continued
federal illegality. But it also reflects the attitudes of
government officials, many of whom view the newly legal industry as
distasteful and embarrassing.

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