The Colorado Experiment

(Summary by Hannah Wareham)

Throughout this article, author Serena Renner visits several interesting locations in Colorado where marijuana is either being consumed, sold, or produced. She describes entrepeneurs being excited about the money to be made after legalization, with 63.4 million dollars in taxes collected at the culmination of 2014. On top of this, the marijuana industry is just teeming with jobs, anywhere from lighting to grow plants under, to construction of marijuana warehouses, to employees at new weed outlets. After setting the scene at a fancy party with businessmen and women casually smoking joints, she details the history of the drug in America, and why it has become so controversial today. She mentions the groundbreaking steps Colorado has taken in this area, including Amendment 20 in 200 that allowed medical marijuana to be sold and prescribed, and Amendment 64 in 2012 that made recreational weed legal, with a public majority favoring legalization. Further in the article, she interviews people ranging from an anti-marijuana legislator to a patient who uses weed to quell tremors in his hands. She describes several challenges associated with legalization, including the federal vs state law conundrum, to banks that refuse to give loans to businesses associated with marijuana. She discusses the problems and benefits with edibles and pure THC. Finally, Renner ends the article with the fact that whether America is ready or not, Colorado and others states have made it clear that legalization is the popular vote, creating a several billion dollar industry in a matter of a few years.

Overall, Renner is pro-legalization. She highlights (no pun intended) the fascinating locations where weed is now commonplace, painting a vivid picture of futuristic companies and young entrepeneurs. Her main argument is that marijuana creates a prosperous economy, but the length of her article allows for several subtopics to drift in, such as the benefits of medical marijuana, the reactions from anti-weed advocates, and discussions with up-and-coming businesses taking advantage of popular demand. Her values seem to focus on exploration and curiosity, prosperity, and the voice of the public.

You can read the article for yourself here:

RENNER, S. (2015). THE COLORADO EXPERIMENT. Saturday Evening Post, 287(3), 42-91.