View of a marijuana field at Los Algodones community in Culiacan, Sinaloa State, Mexico on Jan. 30, 2012.
Want to buy an ounce of pot at the farmer’s market along with your haul of tomatillos, sweet peppers and home-baked ciabatta bread? Why not, says an entrepreneurial California businessman, who plans to add the recreational and/or medicinal drug to the Boulder County Farmer’s Market‘s list of consumable wares as soon as possible.
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Colorado legalized the recreational use of marijuana when it passed Amendment 64 last year, a state initiative that won voter support by a considerable margin in November’s election. Colorado governor John Hickenlooper — a longtime opponent of marijuana legalization — signed a bill in May that established a legal framework for the drug to be marketed, and the Colorado Department of Revenue released a report earlier this month outlining how recreational marijuana should be licensed, regulated and sold in the state.
Well bring on the bammy, says California businessman and Weedmaps.com founder Justin Hartfield, who hopes to make pot as commonplace at the Boulder farmer’s market as sweet corn. “Ultimately I see it as part of that existing market,” Hartfield told CBS Denver. “I mean, when this is legalized it should treated as the same as any other vegetable.”
Hartfield has his detractors, of course — while 55% voted for legalization in Colorado, 45% voted against. But Hartfield’s not the first to come up with the idea of pitching the popular psychoactive weed to market passerby: the NW Cannabis Farmers Market in Seattle already does it.
“These are individual patient farmers and under collective gardeners and under Washington law they are allowed to offer their excess medicine for donation,” NW Cannabis Market spokesman Michael Keysor told CBS Denver.
That said, if you’re planning a tourist excursion to Colorado anytime soon and you’re over the mandatory marijuana buying age of 21, be aware that under Colorado state law, non-residents are only allowed to purchase a quarter of an ounce at once.