Legal cannabis sales open in California

The New Year was accompanied in California by the first sales legal cannabis 20 years after medical cannabis was legalized in the state.

California, the largest state in the United States, has thus joined the list of American states that have legalized cannabis for recreational use. As a result, 1 in 5 Americans now lives in a state where cannabis is legal, almost making us forget that it is still illegal at federal level.

The first dispensaries to receive their licenses to sell recreational cannabis welcomed lines of a few hundred people on the morning of January 1.

The most iconic sale certainly took place at Oakland's Harborside dispensary, where owner Steve DeAngelo, a longtime activist, sold his first gram of recreational cannabis to his attorney, Henry G. Wykowski, who has defended him against the various attempts to shut down the dispensary federally since its inception in 2006.

First sale at #Harborside #cannabis #CaliforniaCannabis pic.twitter.com/JcZFlvKBRz

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- Christien Kafton (@CKaftonKTVU) January 1, 2018

California now faces many challenges. In the short term, more than 1,000 licenses for cannabis businesses (sales outlets, testing labs, event organizers...) are still waiting to be distributed, after validation by the Bureau of Cannabis Control.

But in the longer term, what's at stake is the transition to legal supply of a system that has always operated on the black market, with 80% of Californian production sold illegally outside the state's borders.

In terms of public health and safety, it remains to be seen whether the revenues generated by the legal industry through taxes will be sufficient to implement the new regulations. new californian cannabis laws and regulations. Taxes on legal cannabis are also rather high, representing up to 70% of the price per gram. This could force some people to continue sourcing on the black market, or more legally, to grow their own plants.

Whatever happens, California will be a formidable observatory for all the states and countries currently considering legalizing cannabis. Next big event, the Canada next July !