LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 19: Dave Warden, a bud tender at Private Organic Therapy (P.O.T.), a non-profit co-operative medical marijuana dispensary, displays various types of marijuana available to patients on October 19, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. Attorney General Eric Holder announced new guidelines today for federal prosecutors in states where the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes is allowed under state law. Federal prosecutors will no longer trump the state with raids on the southern California dispensaries as they had been doing, but Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley recently began a crackdown campaign that will include raids against the facilities. Cooley maintains that virtually all marijuana dispensaries are in violation of the law because they profit from their product. The city of LA has been slow to come to agreement on how to regulate its 800 to 1,000 dispensaries. Californians voted to allow sick people with referrals from doctors to consume cannabis with the passage of state ballot Proposition 215 in 1996 and a total of 14 states now allow the medicinal use of marijuana. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
これまで医療目的に限り、マリファナが解禁されていたカリフォルニア州で、1/1から嗜好用のマリファナも解禁された。
Los Angeles Timesによれば、認可店の前には数百人以上が列をなし、解禁を祝ったと伝えている。また解禁の際のセレモニーにバークレー市の市長 Jesse Arreguinと、カリフォルニア州選出の上院議員Nancy Skinnerも参加したとのことだ。
嗜好用のマリファナも合法化されたことで、カリフォルニアは2020年までにマリファナ産業が70億ドル(約7900億円以上)の規模に達する見通しとなっており、全米で最もマリファナビジネスが盛んな州として、さらなる発展が見込まれている。
