DENVER — Less than a week after Colorado legalized marijuana, tokers have found ways to stretch their weed dollars and the law.
Electronic cigarettes may be under fire in New York City, but in the land of legal pot, they provide a discreet way to break the rules — and they’re economical.
“It’s a more intense high than just smoking pot,” said Bob Richmond, 39, of his e-cig, which was designed not for synthetic nicotine but for highly concentrated marijuana oil.
Richmond said the odorless smoking device makes it convenient to spark up in public places — which is a no-no in the Centennial State.
“It’s also very discreet,” Richmond said. “I can walk around Walmart and pull it out for a few puffs and nobody notices.”
Pot e-cigs, like the herb you can smoke, can only be used on private property in Colorado. Selling weed oil cartridges also is now legal in the state.
Cannabis fans say the electronic weed doobies also make it easy to take advantage of a loophole in the law — the amount of weed one person can buy.
A visitor to the state can buy up to a quarter ounce of fresh, green Mary Jane in a single purchase, more than enough to get high for a few days. Marijuana oil concentrates, on the other hand, are sold in cartridges measured in hundreds of milligrams.
These cartridges are so strong that they can last for weeks at a time. So the same visitor could conceivably purchase dozens of cartridges at once, enough to stay high for months and months.
“I hit it all day, every day, and one cartridge lasts me for a couple of weeks,” said an employee of the Evergreen Apothecary, who gave only his first name, Connor. “I tried going back to regular pot and it tasted terrible, like a cigarette.”
The Evergreen has been doing a brisk business in recreational marijuana since sales started on Jan 1. Many of those sales have been for O-pen Vape vaporizers and marijuana oil cartridges. A 150 milligram cartridge goes $15 while a 500 milligrams costs $45 — about the price of an eighth of an ounce of buds.
Under the law, a visitor could buy 47 of the 150 mg cartridges at once, while a resident could buy 188 of them.
“Electronic vaporizers have become a wild trend in the market,” said Ralph Morgan, co-founder of O-pen Vape.
While it didn’t seem that anyone was walking out of Evergreen with dozens of O-pen Vape cartridges, the law does technically allow it.
The same is true for marijuana edibles like pot brownies and candies, which have potency also measured in milligrams, but whose effect is often much more powerful and long-lasting, than just smoking a joint.
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