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In 2012, Washington and Colorado voters made history when they approved measures to legalize recreational marijuana. Washington Initiative 502 “authorizes the state liquor board to regulate and tax marijuana for persons twenty-one years of age or older.”Since the vote in Washington, the Liquor Board has written a complex set of rules for the state’s new, legal recreational cannabis marketplace. The agency has also set limits on the amount of marijuana that can be grown. And the Board has begun to license growers, processors and retailers.For now, the Obama administration has signaled it will not interfere with Washington and Colorado’s legal pot experiment, unless there is evidence that legal pot is “leaking” to other states or children are getting access to the legal product. The feds are also watching to see if criminal organizations exploit the legal market.The first marijuana retail stores in Washington opened in July 2014.Recreational marijuana is also set to become legal in Oregon on July 1, 2015 after voters approved Measure 91 in November 2014.

Revised Pot Rules Allow 334 Retail Stores In Washington

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Washington could have as many as 334 marijuana retail stores statewide. That’s the cap proposed Wednesday by the state’s Liquor Control Board.

Rural Ferry County in northeast Washington would only be allowed one pot retailer. But populous King County could have 61 -- including 21 stores in the city of Seattle.

No so-called "potrepreneur" could operate more than three stores.

Liquor Board member Chris Marr says that rule is designed to keep monopolies at bay. “I think avoids the type of market dominated by a few large players which I think the input we received, people wanted to avoid which could drive up prices and encourage the type of aggressive marketing that I believe we want to move away from.”

Realistically, the Board predicts the first pot stores will open next June.

Other new rules would cap marijuana production in Washington at 2 million square feet – or about half the size of Boeing’s Everett factory. The total amount of marijuana that could be produced annually would be limited to 40 metric tons.

Since January 2004, Austin Jenkins has been the Olympia-based political reporter for the Northwest News Network. In that position, Austin covers Northwest politics and public policy, as well as the Washington State Legislature. You can also see Austin on television as host of TVW's (the C–SPAN of Washington State) Emmy-nominated public affairs program "Inside Olympia."