July 8, 2014 has come and gone. We all witnessed the anti-climatic grand opening of the Seattle recreational retail marijuana industry, when the cities only licensed weed shop – Cannabis City – opened its doors only to close down three days later when they ran out of supply.
One of the memorable highlights was when an aptly named 65 year old grandmother, Deborah Greene, who made history as the first adult in the city of Seattle to legally buy cannabis. Wasn’t there another aptly named individual by the name of, Sean Green, the owner of Spokane based Kouchlock Productions, who made history as the first owner to receive a marijuana business license? Let’s just hope it was crazy coincidence, or maybe, too much thought and time was placed on PR instead of the actual product. Speaking of product, we still have a couple more days before Cannabis City opens again. Yay?
Hindsight is 20/20, but all we had to do was a few things differently and we would have rocked it! Yes, AC/DC, Back in Black, ‘and you shook me all night long’ type of rocking it! If we had just done the following three things, we would have been the envy of all future recreational marijuana States. California would have wished they were us. Even New York. Heck, some Coloradans would have relocated here!
1) Do things EXACTLY the same as the Colorado recreational marijuana rollout
There, I said it. While Colorado had a beautiful and painless rollout of their recreational marijuana industry, we tripped out of the gate, only to get back up and trip again. And to top it all off, we had more than 6 months after Colorado’s rollout, to prepare! The blueprint was there for all too see. It was talked about intensely on National media circuits for months. All we had to do is emulate what they did, and then some. But we didn’t.
While Denver saw a bunch of recreational marijuana shops open up on the first of the year, Seattle saw one lonely store. Four days after the 4th of July, we were like that firework known as the “Tank.” It sputters around for a bit, sparkles a little, and… that’s it?!
2) Legalize recreational marijuana delivery services
Recreational marijuana delivery services was a brilliant and genius idea. Especially since city regulations would disallow recreational pot shops in the most densely populated areas of Seattle, like Capitol Hill. In addition, the recreational marijuana delivery industry was in place and operating just fine, well before the state even announced a date for the opening of the first legal marijuana shop! If you aren’t sure about what you could get online, then it might be a good idea to check out this pure options menu to give you a better idea of what you could get. There are loads of sites online that you can use though if you want to order marijuana online. If you are unsure about a site then it is probably better to not use it. The best thing to do is check out reviews, or ask someone you know. You could easily check out a website like cheap weed ca to help you understand what a legitimate website would look like.
The marijuana delivery services were forced to operate like mercenaries, skirting the law, in hopes that the Washington State liquor Control Board would give them a second look. It never happened, and the most notable of delivery services sought refuge in the unregulated medical marijuana industry.
Not all marijuana delivery services have left, though, and continue their grey area or illegal – depends on who you talk to – operations. This is really too bad because the State of Washington would have broken new ground and really led the way by legalizing delivery services. And collected a huge amount in tax revenue right off the bat. [take a look]
3) Allowed cannabis consumption at recreational retail shops or opened up marijuana-friendly establishments
Now that you finally purchased legal weed in the State of Washington, where the heck do you smoke it? It is obvious that the State of Washington and Liquor Control Board didn’t put much brain power in where to consume your pot.
And neither did Colorado, which would have been a perfect opportunity to step up to the plate and announce to the cannabis world that Seattle and the state of Washington was going to replicate the famous coffeeshops of Amsterdam!
Say what?!?!
Could you imagine how big of a splash, a statement, accolades, praise, and jealousy the state of Washington would have received? With this being said, it is never too late to make a change. If you are someone who wants to be a part of this ever changing industry, just by doing some research into dispensary supplies, you could be well on your way to making a positive change to your business and people who require the use of medical marijuana. You never know if you don’t try.
We would have been the epitome of recreational marijuana cool. And we would have probably even seen an influx of Coloradans moving to the great Northwest, because we were that much better.
What do you think? Are there other things that Washington State could have done differently to rock it?
