Pubdate: Wed, 09 Jul 2014
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2014 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Authors: Bob Young, Andy Mannix, Evan Bush
Page: 1

FIRST LEGAL BUYERS GET THEIR 'PIECE OF HISTORY'

Stores Open With Celebrations, Plans for Bigger Supply

Deb Greene was looking forward to some blissful shut-eye after buying
the first pot Tuesday from Cannabis City in Sodo.

She hadn't slept Monday night as she waited in line
outside.

Greene, 65, a retiree, said she doesn't smoke pot often. But now she
could enjoy it legally at her Ballard home, maybe with "Game of
Thrones" on TV. "It's incredibly liberating," she said. "It's the
dream of every retiree, sleep in and smoke a bowl."

Cheers erupted from the crowd outside Cannabis City when Greene
emerged and held her two paper bags aloft. She was the opening act in
a low-key celebration that also featured City Attorney Pete Holmes
buying two packages of OG's Pearl, one for posterity and one, he said,
for "personal enjoyment."

While Tuesday was all about people joyously marking history, only five
stores in the state opened. Operators of several others that had hoped
to open said they couldn't secure scarce supply, as most licensed
growers haven't yet harvested crops. "There are going to be bumps on
the road as we veer away from the failed drug war," Holmes said.

Not much can be concluded from the first weeks of legal sales in
Washington, said former state pot consultant Mark Kleiman. "If you
want to see what this is going to look like in real life, you have to
wait until after the harvest," said Kleiman, a UCLA professor and
drug-policy expert.

Because the state has licensed only about one-quarter of the 2 million
square feet it has allotted for farming, supply should remain short
for a while and prices high. Inside Cannabis City Tuesday, pot was
selling for $20 per gram, all taxes included. (Pot averages about $10
to $12 per gram in Seattle medical-marijuana dispensaries.) Owner
James Lathrop said prices likely would rise because he got a special
deal for inaugural sales from the farmers at Bremerton's Nine Point
Growth Industries, and he didn't want to gouge customers on the first
day.

Lathrop restocked Tuesday evening and didn't expect to run out of pot
until sometime after Wednesday; he said earlier he was working on a
deal with a second supplier in hopes of having more this week. Stores
that opened in Bellingham and in Prosser, Benton County, reported
confidence in having supply on hand this week.

Alison Holcomb, chief author of Washington's legal pot law, also
bought at Cannabis City Tuesday. She said she hoped the state Liquor
Control Board (LCB) would accelerate its review of thousands of
applications for business licenses to grow and process pot.

Justin Nordhorn, enforcement chief for the LCB, stopped by Cannabis
City before it opened. The state has imposed strict rules - barring
minors, limiting advertising and requiring testing for all products -
on the new industry. Nordhorn said he talked to store employees about
recognizing fake IDs and what to expect from his plainclothes officers.

No police were in sight near the Sodo shop, which hired its own burly
security guards. Nor was the smell of weed prevalent in the orderly
crowd.

Damien Tillman, a customer from Tacoma, wanted to give Nordhorn a
message outside the shop. "Make sure you do this right," Tillman said.
"It's very important."

"A great step forward"

In Bellingham, Top Shelf Cannabis welcomed Cale Holdsworth, 29, a
Kansan visiting family in Washington, as its first customer just after
8 a.m. With dozens of photographers and reporters watching his every
move, Holdsworth scanned samples of the product, then decided on the
OG's Pearl strain.

After making his purchase, he held up his pot triumphantly in a brown
bag for all to see.

"This is a great moment," he told the crowd. "I think it's a great
step forward."

And like the Neil Armstrong of legal marijuana purchasers in
Washington, Holdsworth had became one of the first people to buy weed
from a Washington retail shop. The Altitude shop in Prosser also
opened at 8 a.m.

The Bellingham event attracted an eclectic crowd of more than 100
people by 9 a.m. Lori Bradford and Ellen McCauley, a married couple
from California, said they recently moved to the state, in part
because of the new marijuana laws. McCauley said she came to the store
Tuesday morning because she was running low on supply. Both women said
they planned to buy an ounce.

"Marriage only recently became legal, so I never thought I'd see
either of these things in our lifetime," said McCauley.

Ramona Rodriguez, 65, who bought two grams in Bellingham, said she's
been smoking since she was 18. This was the first time she took part
in a transaction that ended with the question: "Receipt in the bag?"

"Budtenders" offer expertise

Back inside Seattle's Cannabis City, with its avocado and yellow
walls, wood floors and glass display cases, sales clerks and twin
brothers Adam and Andrew Powers advised the first customers, including
Holmes, on what to expect from different strains.

Clerks, or budtenders as they're known, aren't allowed to discuss
medical properties of strains. But they can talk about how a strain
might make you feel. "Each strain has a different taste and smell,
like coffee," Andrew Powers said.

Holmes, 58, got carded by a cashier before he paid $80 for four grams
of a potent strain with 21.5 percent THC, the main psychoactive
chemical in pot.

Holmes said he planned to keep half for historical reasons and enjoy
the other half when "appropriate," meaning in the privacy of his home
when he isn't working in any legal capacity. "It's been a long time,"
he said, "since college."

A warm wait, then the reward

Before Tillman walked into Cannabis City to buy marijuana, he ripped
off some of the police tape that hung from the door frame and asked a
fellow pot buyer for a marker.

"A piece of history right here, brother," he said. "So excited."
Tillman later asked Cannabis City owner James Lathrop to sign the
ceremonial caution tape that the store put up as a representation of
prohibition past.

Tillman, 36, had paid another prospective pot buyer, Michael Merithew,
$200 for his place in line. That made him fifth or so, after the VIPs
Cannabis City would let in first. Then he waited about three hours in
the heat to get his hands on legal recreational pot.

"It has something to do with what I love most in this world," he later
explained. "It's the thing I have the most passion for."

Tillman bought $200 worth of pot but planned to smoke only one of his
five two-gram packages. He wants to keep the rest as a memento.

About an hour later in his Tacoma home, Tillman loaded his bong with
Copper Kush.

A medical-marijuana grower himself, Tillman gave a neutral report.
"I've grown better weed than that, I've grown worse weed than that,"
he said.

"It definitely hits you pretty good," he said after a couple bong
hits, but noted some rot on some Copper Kush flowers. "You'd expect a
little bit better bag appeal," he said.

"That does smell good, though."

Times staff reporter Colleen Wright contributed to this report.
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