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Comment by bruceb | Hacker News Reader

Lots of non state residents buy: purchases by out of state visitors currently represent about 44 percent of metro area retail sales and about 90 percent of retail sales in heavily visited mountain communities.

So nearby state might want to stop losing money and make it legal also.

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My guess is that a majority of visitors consume what they buy within Colorado. There are pot-tourism operations springing up, such as ski shuttles from Denver Airport that provide marijuana for the ride to the resort.

Wow. I'd think that transporting any kind of marijuana across state lines as a seriously illegal act. If so it strikes me as incredibly risky and ill advised. Why would so many people risk so much for pot?

I think that answer is easy: $$$. A lot of drugs cross state and country lines, so the fact that it's crossing the border of Colorado surely was expected.

I think you'll find that people have been taking legal risks for marijuana (and any other drug) for a very long time. Take New York, for example. There have historically been laws so strict that possession of even small amounts can result in long jail sentences. The people taking pot out of Colorado probably don't see it as more risky than buying it illegally in their native state.

I'm not sure NY is a great example because possession and consumption in private has been legal for decades.

Your point stands however-- draconian anti-cannabis laws do exist, and enthusiasts will nonetheless take risks to indulge.

I think you've misunderstood. Out of state visitors aren't necessarily trafficking. They are coming to indulge. The retail prices are prohibitively hard to turn a profit from resale, even in the most lucrative non-legal out of state markets.

I met an oil guy from Texas who had come into the state on business and had purchased some pot for himself. Due to the nature of his business he couldn't actually smoke any.. he just wanted to buy some for the novelty, to give away to others.

Two factors: risk of getting caught is relatively low if one is careful, and penalties are fairly minor if apprehended.

In my case, I never board a domestic flight without at least four bluntsworth of bud. And recently have been taking the same approach for international flights originating in the US with stops and terminus in countries with a strong tradition of rule of law and/or cannabis tolerance (ie, most of Western Europe, North and Latin America).

The areas around Colorado are almost entirely unpopulated, most people going to 'heavily visited mountain communities' are either local to Colorado or travelling in from a long distance.

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