But customers in some of the state’s largest cities find themselves out of luck.<\/b>
\nOAKLAND, Calif. \u2014 It wasn\u2019t exactly reefer madness Monday as California launched the first legal retail sales of marijuana, but those who could find the drug celebrated the historic day, lining up early for ribbon cuttings, freebies and offerings ranging from joints to gummy bears to weed with names like Red Dragon.
Jeff Deakin, 66, his wife, Mary, and their dog waited in the cold all night to be first in a line of 100 people when Harborside dispensary, a longtime medical pot shop in Oakland, opened at 6 a.m. and offered early customers joints for a penny and free T-shirts that read \u201cFlower to the People \u2013 Cannabis for All.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s been so long since others and myself could walk into a place where you could feel safe and secure and be able to get something that was good without having to go to the back alley,\u201d Deakin said. \u201cThis is kind of a big deal for everybody.\u201d
Harborside founder Steve DeAngelo used a giant pair of scissors to cut a green ribbon, declaring, \u201cWith these scissors I dub thee free,\u201d before ringing up the first customer at a cash register.
Sales were brisk in the shops lucky to score one of the roughly 100 state licenses issued so far, but customers in some of the state\u2019s largest cities were out of luck. Los Angeles and San Francisco hadn\u2019t authorized shops in time to get state licenses and other cities, such as Riverside and Fresno, blocked sales altogether.
Licensed shops are concentrated in San Diego, Santa Cruz, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Palm Springs area.
California voters in 2016 made it legal for adults 21 and older to grow, possess and use limited quantities of marijuana, but it wasn\u2019t legal to sell it for recreational purposes until Monday.
The nation\u2019s most populous state now joins a growing list of states, and the nation\u2019s capital, where so-called recreational marijuana is permitted even though the federal government continues to classify pot as a controlled substance, like heroin and LSD.
The signs that California was tripping toward legal pot sales were evident well before the stroke of midnight. California highways flashed signs before New Year\u2019s Eve that said \u201cDrive high, Get a DUI,\u201d reflecting law enforcement concerns about stoned drivers. Weedmaps, the phone app that allows customers to rate shops, delivery services and shows their locations, ran a full-page ad Sunday in the Los Angeles Times that said \u201cSmile California. It\u2019s Legal.\u201d
The state banned what it called \u201cloco-weed\u201d in 1913, though it has been easing criminal penalties for use of the drug since the 1970s and was the first state to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes in 1996.
Travis Lund, 34, said he\u2019d been looking forward while working the graveyard shift to buy weed legally for the first time since he began smoking pot as a teenager.
\u201cI\u2019m just stoked that it\u2019s finally legal,\u201d he said after purchasing an eighth of an ounce of \u201cMount Zion\u201d and another type of loose leaf marijuana at Northstar Holistic Collective in Sacramento, where the fragrance of pot was strong. \u201cI\u2019m going to go home and get high \u2013 and enjoy it.\u201d
Lund previously purchased marijuana on the black market through friends and said that may continue, given the high costs of the legal weed, which is heavily taxed. But he said he would indulge in retail pot occasionally because of controls being phased in to ensure a higher-quality product.
Shops will be able to sell marijuana harvested without full regulatory controls for six months but will eventually be able to sell only pot tested for potency, pesticides and other contaminants, and products that have been tracked from seed to sale.
The Bureau of Cannabis Control was not aware of any problems or complaints about the first day of sales, but it didn\u2019t have inspectors in the field, spokesman Alex Traverso said.
Employees at the bureau on the holiday continued to process 1,400 pending license applications for retail sales, distribution and testing facilities.
Traverso said they expect a flood of applications from Los Angeles and San Francisco after those are approved locally. Because Los Angeles is the biggest market in the state, some of those shops will be approved more quickly than others waiting in line, he said.
The status of the Los Angeles shops highlights broad confusion over the new law. City officials announced late last month that the city will not begin accepting license applications until Jan. 3, and it might take weeks before any licenses are issued. That led to widespread concern that long-established businesses would have to shut down during the interim.
Attorneys advising a group of city dispensaries have concluded those businesses can legally sell medicinal marijuana as \u201ccollectives,\u201d until they obtain local and state licenses under the new system, said Jerred Kiloh of the United Cannabis Business Association, an industry group.
It wasn\u2019t immediately clear how many of those shops, if any, were open.
\u201cMy patients are scared, my employees are scared,\u201d said Kiloh, who owns a dispensary in the city\u2019s San Fernando Valley area.
In Orange County, shops in Santa Ana received the green light over the weekend to open and a steady flow showed up at ShowGrow.
Ellen St. Peter, 61, shopped with her son, Bryce St. Peter, 23, both medical marijuana users.
She said she smoked pot for years \u2013 at times taking great risks to get it \u2013 but stopped once she started having kids.
\u201cIn high school my guy friends would fantasize about shops we could go into and just buy weed,\u201d she said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t have dreamed of this place.\u201d
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