Marijuana users in Colorado are rejoicing.
For the first time ever, recreational pot vendors opened for business in Colorado on New Years Day, the Associated Press reported. Supporters of marijuana hope this will let America know that legalization makes more sense than fighting a pricey war on drugs.
A 1920s-themed "Prohibition Is Over" party in Denver was filed with pot smokers using bongs and shouting for joy as they celebrated the New Year.
"We wanted to be a part of this movement," Brandon Harris, who waited outside a Denver pot shop before it opened Wednesday morning, told the AP. Harris, from Blanchester, Ohio, drove 20 hours to join the movement.
"We're making history here," Harris told the AP.
Colorado approved marijuana legalization in 2012. Pot vendors and state administrators anticipate the new industry will bring in plenty of revenue. Nearly two-dozen stores in eight Colorado towns opened for business New Years Day, adding employees and increasing security.
Jacob Elliot, who traveled from Leesburg, Virginia, told the AP he wrote college papers on why marijuana should be made legal. Elliot said he did not think it would occur during his lifetime.
"This breaks that barrier," Elliot told the AP. "We can buy it like any other free-market product."
Anyone under the age of 21 is prohibited from buying pot. But opponents still say legalization makes pot more available to teenagers, leading to an increase of drug addiction and crime among minors, the AP reported.
"This is just throwing gas on the fire," Ben Cort from the Colorado Center for Dependency, Addiction & Rehabilitation at the University of Colorado Hospital, told the AP.
Advocates say the new market will generate revenue for state finances and save money that would otherwise be used to incarcerate drug users. They anticipate the state's pot selling industry, which is still illegal under federal law, won't be such a big deal after a while, the AP reported.
"Adults have been buying marijuana around this country for years." Mason Tvert, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, told the AP. "The only difference is that in Colorado they will now buy it from legitimate businesses instead of the underground market."
