Portland, I have seen your future and it is mildly impressed.
As you’ll know by now, Oregon opened up recreational marijuana sales for the first time in its history at midnight, and a handful of retailers who weren’t cowed by nonexistent regulations went for it—splaying their doors promptly at 12:01, offering muffins, donuts, and ham pinwheels, and cheerfully pushing marked-up buds on willing customers.
Remember 15 months ago, when Washington opened up pot sales? No? Well I do. In Vancouver that day, there was just one pot store. A band played on the corner, and the mayor showed up, and people chuckled about how they were going to frame the first legal buds they ever bought in their lives.
This is not that. If the dozens who lined up outside of Shango near the airport last night are any indication, people are used to this buying legal pot thing—just not so used to it they’d forego heading out late to buy a bag in their own god damn state.
“It’s pretty monumental I guess,” one longhaired kid at Shango basically whispered when I asked what he thought, while behind me a large man in pajamas worried loudly that a news photographer might snap him on the scene. “That’s all I need, my picture on the front of the Oregonian,” he said.
Buck up, Portland! It’s October 1, and history’s being made, and the Mercury’s very serious about history. We’ve hand-picked a crack squad to bring you the latest from this auspicious day. Stay tuned. DIRK VANDERHART
