Merging the Medical Use Market with the Recreational Market
Keith Stroup, NORML Legal Counsel
One of the current challenges facing both Colorado and Washington is how to successfully implement a full legalization system along side an existing medical use system. In Colorado, for example, the state elected to permit their existing, licensed medical use dispensaries to be the only dispensaries permitted for the first year (although they were required to keep the two sides of their business separate), to take advantage of the existing infrastructure for growing and dispensing marijuana. Thereafter those without prior experience in the medical marijuana marketplace were allowed to apply for licenses to grow and sell recreational marijuana.
