Douglas Hiatt says he knows where to find good pot.

But the pro-legalization activist and defense attorney says you probably won't see it at Washington state’s first recreational marijuana stores opening Tuesday.

“You’re going to have people selling grams of pot for $25? What, are you kidding me?” Hiatt says. “You can get the best pot you have ever smoked for 10 bucks a gram at a [medical marijuana] dispensary or from someone else who's going to give you a better deal than the state.”

Hiatt’s not a fan of Initiative 502, the ballot measure 56 percent of Washington voters embraced in 2012 to establish – alongside Colorado – the first state-regulated recreational marijuana market.

Nearly two years after the measure passed, the Washington State Liquor Control Board issued 24 retail store licenses Monday. There will eventually be 334 licensed stores. Growers were licensed beginning in March, but only 80 licenses have been issued to a pool of 2,600 applicants.

Several marijuana shops plan to open this week in Washington, but supplies are tight and only one store in Seattle will open Tuesday.

“There’s no way they are going to eliminate the black market with something that’s totally unresponsive to a market at all,” Hiatt says. "You're going to see very quickly the problems when you try to do things Soviet style. When you're using universally rejected planning economy theory, you're going to reap disaster."

The nation’s first recreational pot stores opened January 1 in Colorado, where the first batch of retail licenses went to established, state-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries – an option unavailable in Washington, where medical marijuana was legalized in 1998, but where federal threats prevented state regulation.

Hiatt says the Washington initiative should have gone with an outright repeal of pot laws, instead of attempting to regulate the market, which he says a hostile presidential administration could kill in court for being in violation of federal law. He says the special 25 percent tax rate applied to each cog of the production chain and limits on competition ensure a booming black market.

Washington's legislature can begin tinkering with the law during its 2015 session and Hiatt believes that's likely to make the system worse.

But his advice to lawmakers: "You want to take the people doing whatever the illegal activity was and you make them legal. You don't create this giant freaking bureaucracy, you don't start trying to do economic planning that would make Lenin proud, you let the free market work."

Unlike Colorado’s legalization law, which allows residents to grow six plants at home, Washington’s law does not allow recreational marijuana home-grows, or allow residents to give pot to friends. Hiatt says most people don’t know that and that growing marijuana is more popular than ever in the state.

Cannabis City owner James Lathrop, right, reaches to embrace friends in front of his shop - the only Seattle recreational marijuana store opening Tuesday.

Elaine Thompson/AP

“Oh heck yeah, hell yeah, there are so many grows up here, good grief!” he says. “I could get you in a car and you could pick a neighborhood at random, and I will show you grow houses. There will not be a street where I cannot show you something. More people are doing it now because it's less of a risk and they think the law has changed."

Enforcement in some areas is lax, he says, but in others residents risk serious criminal penalties for growing their own supply. And at the federal level, the U.S. attorney’s office in eastern Washington is going full-speed ahead against medical marijuana.

"He's turned the damned eastern district of Washington into a state court," Hiatt says. “He's put people with 15 plants in federal court."

The U.S. attorney based in Spokane is currently prosecuting four family members and a friend – jointly nicknamed the “Kettle Falls Five” – for roughly complying with the state’s medical marijuana law, which allows for collective gardens with 45 plants.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced in August state recreational marijuana programs won’t be targeted by federal prosecutors unless they trigger certain enforcement priorities, but his department also advised prosecutors in 2009 to avoid charging people complying with state medical marijuana laws.

Hiatt says there’s concern that the U.S. attorney's office in eastern Washington will turn its sights to recreational marijuana.

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment about whether federal prosecutors have been given additional instruction on recreational marijuana in Washington.

Alison Holcomb, the primary author of Initiative 502 and the criminal justice director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington State, tells U.S. News she doubts federal prosecutors will move against recreational marijuana.

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The state medical marijuana law is "a mess" compared to the legalization law, she says, predicting "the risk of someone being prosecuted by the federal government for complying with Initiative 502 is quite slim."

Holcomb hopes the legal pot market will become more open with legislative adjustments – including allowing at-home growing and sharing among friends – and says the restrictive initial regulations were drafted to win the broadest appeal at the ballot box and to assuage federal concerns.

"We wanted the federal government to allow us to proceed. Nobody knew on Nov. 6, 2012, whether or not the Department of Justice was going to issue a press statement saying they were coming to shut it down," she says. "That was a significant consideration."

Holcomb, however, fundamentally disagrees with Hiatt's characterization of the new market. "Initiative 502 is a system of private small business owners who are going to show ingenuity and creativity in bringing marijuana into a legal marketplace," she says. "It's going to take some time, it's going to be a little bumpy as production ramps up to meet demand, but it's going to be successful."

Wealthy marijuana reform advocates poured millions into the Initiative 502 campaign. Hiatt and some other longtime activists wanted a more forceful approach – including an age limit lower than 21 – and didn't support the measure.

D.C. Cannabis Campaign organizer Adam Eidinger, who submitted what appear to be enough signatures Monday to get legalization on the District of Columbia's November ballot, says there’s tension around the country between veteran activists and business-minded reformers.

Eidinger says his initiative would be a victory for activists and bristles at "the culture of get rich, tax the hell out of it" that he sees as a new motivator for reform. Like Hiatt, he's primarily interested in eliminating arrests and believes prices would dive with less regulation and legal home-grows.

"It's so sad because you can see very clearly that the politicians are running straight for the money and Wall Street is going after the money, and they have no scruples," he says.

Major marijuana advocacy groups celebrated the grand opening of stores in Washington. Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, now affiliated with the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, hailed the store openings in a statement.