


"This is brand new and unprecedented," said Colorado state Rep. Dan Pabon, appointed to Gov. John Hickenlooper's task force to devise how to implement the law. "There's not a lot of evidence we can look to, other than using deductive reasoning, to determine the best course."


"We are considering what the federal response to those new statutes will be," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. "We will have the ability to announce what our policy will be relatively soon."

In a letter to the committee, nine former Drug Enforcement Administration chiefs urged "federal intervention and preemption" to stop legalization in Colorado and Washington to protect the nation's health and safety.








"We want to be for-profit instead of nonprofit," he said. "It's going to make my sales jump tremendously."


"We predict the market will be four to five times bigger than the current market," said Brian Vicente, a Denver-based lawyer who said he has advised many of Colorado's medical- marijuana dispensary operators. "There are about 500,000 people who admit to using medical marijuana once a month, so quite a few people who are not medical marijuana patients will be going to these new stores."


"We're at the dawn of a new industry," Vicente said. "We're looking essentially at going from an annual business of zero to an annual business of hundreds of millions of dollars in just a few years."


"People want to open things like Amsterdam-style cafes, but frankly it's not allowed under current law," he said. "A lot of these extravagant and unique business ideas that are brought to us - we have to rain on people's parades."






"There's a lot of passion about this issue," Smith said. "Many would like to see it limited to small growers."


"This is kind of stock and trade for mayors to go to trade associations and talk to them about what's happening in government and how we can help their business - first time ever for marijuana," McGinn said in a telephone interview. "And what was unusual about it is it was just like all the other trade-association meetings I've been to."


The question of whether the federal government will prevent implementation of the new laws is creating uncertainty for state regulators. Colorado's Hickenlooper, 61, is in contact with the U.S. Attorney's office in Denver on the matter, said Eric Brown, a spokesman. Washington Governor Jay Inslee, 62, met in January with Holder to discuss the issue. Both governors are Democrats.


U.S. banks, which are supervised by federal agencies and subject to federal rules, can't offer services to the industry, including business loans.

Some banks "would welcome the opportunity to offer the services but they can't because of the federal government," said Robert Rowe, senior counsel at the American Bankers Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group. "They're afraid of what would happen if they tried to do something."



In Seattle, The Joint's Sadis predicts the city will become the next Amsterdam.

"People are going to be coming here and when they come here they're going to want to get off the plane and experience cannabis," said Sadis, who said he plans to expand his business.

"It's such a great feeling to be one of the pioneers of this industry and seeing where it's going to go in the future," Sadis said.