Pot dispensaries are already – illegally – selling recreational marijuana

By BROOKE EDWARDS STAGGS / STAFF WRITER

The online ad for Green Light District – a pot shop in a brick office building 5 miles from Disneyland – was clear: Anyone 21 years and older was welcome to buy weed with only a “valid ID.”

During a visit to the unlicensed Anaheim dispensary Tuesday, a worker behind tinted glass in the lobby did ask to see a doctor’s recommendation for medical marijuana. But when I told him I didn’t have one, he said my driver’s license verifying I was over 21 was fine so long as I still signed a form stating “under penalty of perjury” that I was a legitimate medical marijuana patient.

I declined, reminding him I was not in fact a patient. So he declined to let me into the locked shop, where a steady stream of visitors was greeted by dance music and a distinct herbal smell.

Green Light District in Anaheim. Mr Nice Guy in Downtown Los Angeles. Smoking Loud Society in Highland. They’re among the dozens of pot shops throughout California advertising that, since voters legalized recreational marijuana under Proposition 64 two months ago, they’ll now sell cannabis without the doctor’s recommendations that have been required under the state’s medical marijuana law for 20 years.

Many of these shops are billing themselves as being “compliant” or “friendly” with Prop. 64, which made it legal as of Nov. 9 for Californians 21 and older to consume marijuana in private, carry an ounce of weed and grow six pot plants per home.

However, Prop. 64 also makes it clear that businesses can’t start selling recreational cannabis until the state establishes a licensing system, which is expected to take until Jan. 1, 2018.

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