Legalizing Marijuana, Colorado | featured news

Entrepreneurs ramp up after the state's voters approved a constitutional amendment legalizing recreational use of marijuana... Two hedge-fund partners — monogrammed shirts, taut Windsor knots, cuff links — step into a hipster cafe called Sputnik on an unorthodox mission.

If a California company has its way, recreational marijuana users in Colorado and Washington state will one day be able to get their pot out of vending machines.

On Monday afternoon, in a conference room off Colfax Avenue in suburban Denver, two dozen members of a government task force will gather to begin hashing out the details of how to create a market for legal, recreational marijuana in the state.

President Barack Obama says he won't go after Washington state and Colorado for legalizing marijuana.<p/>In a Barbara Walters interview airing Friday on ABC, Obama is asked whether he supports making pot legal. He says - quote - "I wouldn't go that far."

Young voters helped pass laws legalizing marijuana in Washington and Colorado, but many still won't be able to light up. Most universities have codes of conduct banning marijuana use, and they get millions of dollars in funding from the federal government, which still considers pot illegal.

The residents of Colorado and Washington state have voted to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, and all hell is about to break loose -- at least ideologically. The problem is that pot is still very much illegal under federal law, and the Obama administration must decide whether to enforce federal law in a state that has rejected the substance of that law.

Hit the slopes - and then a bong? Marijuana legalization votes this week in Colorado and Washington state don't just set up an epic state-federal showdown on drug law for residents. The measures also open the door for marijuana tourism.

Michael Jolton was a young father with a 5-year-old son when Colorado legalized medical marijuana in 2000. Now he's got three boys, the oldest near adulthood, and finds himself repeatedly explaining green-leafed marijuana ads and "free joint" promotions endemic in his suburban hometown.

Efforts to legalize marijuana for recreational use are gaining momentum in Washington state and Colorado, despite fierce opposition from the federal government and a decades-long cultural battle over America's most commonly used illicit drug.