LEGAL

According to early returns, 53 percent of state voters approved Amendment 64, which, according to its sponsors, will restore some sanity to Colorado’s marijuana laws by treating cannabis much more like alcohol and less like an illegal drug. Colorado has become the first state in the history of the U.S. to legalize marijuana. Voters in the Rocky Mountain State decided it’s high time to just get over 75 years of nonsense around the cannabis plant.

“The victories in Colorado and Washington are of historic significance not just for Americans but for all countries debating the future of marijuana prohibition in their own countries,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance . “This is now a mainstream issue, with citizens more or less divided on the issue but increasingly inclined to favor responsible regulation of marijuana over costly and ineffective prohibitionist policies.”

David Stevens

While the restrictions are stringent enough that some in the medical marijuana and recreational cannabis communities opposed Amendment 64 on principle, the chance to become the first state in the union to legalize proved too attractive to pass up, for the majority of the state’s voters.