美国有线新闻 CNN 2014-01-05

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It's been a couple of days of legal recreational pot sells now on the books in Colorado, and the big headline seems to be sticker shock. The price of high quality product, according to the "Denver Post" approaching 400 dollars an ounce with heavy taxes on top of that. The reason is econ 101 plain and simple,  limited supply and very heavy demand. 

 

There is no stereotype¹ about it. There are, there people who are 21 and I've seen people who are 75 years old come through the door today. It's a big mix from all walks of life. I really think when people get the opportunity to choose a form of recreation, a lot of people in Colorado said they would like to choose cannabis and that's what we're seeing today. 

 

I want to get more on what they are seeing today in Colorado. Let's check in with Mxx Marxx in Denver who is surrounded by marijuana at a growing operation called Canyon² Harvest.  Good evening, Migxx. 

 

Good evening, there, John. This is Canyon Harvest. This is the growth facility for ever green Apothecary³ which is just down the street here. These are yonger plants that aren't yet budding out, there's another room over here where they, where all the bud grows and that's the stuff they end up selling. It is running about 50 dollars for an eight ounce plus taxes, usually comes out about 61, 65 dollars so for an eight ounce that you can buy up from there. If you are a Colorado citizen up to an ounce, if you are from out of state, a quarter or a half ounce. It's going gangbusters for retailers⁴ so far, I think beyond wildest expectations at this point. Medicine men, which is a very large dispensary here, they are expecting four to five hundred customers day or one, they've got over 650 turned people away. There was a line there today at every Apothecary that this place supplies. There was a line 100 people long all day long trying to get in there to buy. There's only a handful of these places open right now. More will come online as they get their certification, their licenses⁵ down. But it is unbelieverable, I think beyond all expectations of how it is been sold right now. And I met people from as far away as Maine, Maryland, Oregon, all across the country coming into Oregon. I didn't think it would happen that way, it has, amazing. 

 

Migxx Marxx is botanist⁶, economist⁷, journalist. Are there, have any problems so far now we've had two days of legal sales?

 

There have not been problems with the sales. All of that has gone relatively⁸ smoothly⁹, the long force reporting no concerns. That said, there are lot of edibles¹⁰ coming on the market as well there was an incident today in Longmon, Colorado, where a two-year-old girl pick up a cookie her mother set on the grass outside their home, she ingested it, she was taken to the hospital because she fell ill, and she tested positive for THC. The mother said she does not smoke marijuana or use marijuana, but she and her other child announced subjective¹¹ to a test, basically, to see if they are using marijuana. The police search the house to make sure that there was no marijuana paraphernalia¹² in there. The concern is that there's going to be a lot more kids in this situation. Doctors here saying that before 2009, no kids entered the hospital for marijuana, after 2009, you have 12 kids now who have entered  the hospital on symptoms of THC. John

And these may be the problems,  they are literally¹³ discovering everyday there. Migxx Marxx in Colorado for us. Thanks so much,Mixx. 

 

I want to dig deeper now into the implications and perhaps the complications here. Supreme¹⁴ Court Justice Louis Brand famously calls states the laboratories of democracy. Well, the experiment is now very much underway in Colorado and soon also in Washington state with legal, medical and political and social dimensions to talk about. Here to explore them, chief medical respondent Dr. Sanja Gupta and Senior legal analyst¹⁵ Jeffery Tooben.

 

So Sanja, clearly the laws have changed in some places. Public opinions have changed nationwide. But what about the science? Where is the science now on whether pot is additive¹⁶ and what it might do to your brain?

 

Well, science is emerging, but I'll preface by saying look, you know, this has been illegal substance for a long time in this country. So science is hard to comeby. And that's part of the problem. Having said that, if you look at an addiction¹⁷ sort of across the board,addiction sort of means not only the idea that someone is physically¹⁸ addicted¹⁹ to something, they'll have physical withdraw if you take away that substance, but also is it interfering²⁰ with their way of life. Do they so seek out a substance that earn, it's gonna interfere²¹ with things that they should be doing as part of their normal lives. And if you look at all of that, you know, marijuana, across about 9 percent of people would become addicted to it. Compared to heroin²² which is close to 23 percent, cocaine²³ is in the 20s, alcohol 15, 16 percent depending on studies that you look at. So it is addictive²⁴, although maybe not addictive as some of these other substances.

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