So [bleep] what . Neighbors complain because customers smoke marijuana outside, which is still illegal. The scene creates a convenient metaphor the pot boom in colorado comes complete with growing pains. I dont feel like cooperating with you, officer. Oh, i understand you dont. Youre making my day extremely hard. Theres no reason i would cooperate with you. Sir, if you dont want to cooperate with us, itll be duly noted. We were there at the beginning. [ all cheering ]. Reporting a year ago on the blissful rollout of legal weed. Its part of history. We spoke with governor john hickenlooper, who opposed the new law, but had to implement it. I think most of us recognize that this is gonna be one of the great social experiments of the next century. Today, that experiment is very much a work in progress. But when youre doing it for the first time, theres no theres no template. Some things work, some dont. But know this theres money being made. Colorado is now home to more than 500 pot stores. One of the biggest is called medicine man. Heres an industry that doesnt even exist in colorado five years ago. Five years later, you have Cloud Technology to operate your grow rooms. Yeah. Its been a wild ride, i got to tell you. Were not a bunch of stoners sitting around in tiedye tshirts, you know, smoking pot. It is a true american industry. Andy williams and his sister, sally vander veer, along with their brother pete, run the company. Their hightech grow facility produces 120 pounds of pot a week. So, how you doing . Whats up, man . Welcome to medicine man, brother. Thank you. We do more business out of this one location than anybody else. Were opening a second, and its gonna do more business than this location. And we are drinking from a fire hose. They are pioneers in the bewildering wilderness of legal weed. The federal government still views marijuana as a schedule i drug, so most banks wont come near it. Can you bank yet . Do you have a relationship with a bank . Thats a really good story. Weve lost countless banks. Weve lost a lot of banks so. You know a bank kicked us out after we sent a check to the federal government for taxes this year. They shut us down april 14th, yeah. Its boom time in the cl of cannabis. We did about 4. 5 million last year. What do you think youre gonna do this year . A little over 9 million. Double in one year . Yep. And then next year, probably 18 million. An eighth and an eighth . Correct. Medicine man opened its doors in 2010 as a medicalmarijuana dispensary on the outskirts of denver. Youre in the middle of a Warehouse District in the middle of nowhere. Location, location, location. And we screwed that up but and yet everybodys here. That bad location and some good timing came together in a happy accident. I would suggest my blue dream. Its a really good 60 40 split hybrid. Okay. Were the closest dispensary to the airport. So people land, and they drive here, and they come here first, and then they go up the mountains and have a good time. So about 60 of our sales are tourist. So, how long are you guys in town for . A couple more days. People are getting to be connoisseurs in colorado. They want to have a large selection, and they want to try something that smells like cheese and something thats like wine. Medicine man has thrived by satisfying the palates of aficionados. But this bucket good, dense buds 30,000. Pete williams runs the growing operation, cultivating up to 70 different strains at a time. This is the girl scout cookies. Oh, it just hits you in the face. It smacks you. [ sniffs ] its a little bit fuelly, a little bit skunky. Its got a little of everything in there, and it just tastes so good, and the high on this one is more towards that topend high, the maximum high. I personally smoke this most nights. Its my favorite. An estimated 33 million americans used marijuana in 2013. Thats up nearly a third from a decade ago. Since colorado led the charge for legalization, three more states and the district of columbia have followed suit. And nearly half the country now allows medicinal marijuana. Its clearly the Fastest Growing industry in the country. Troy dayton leads arcview, a cannabisfocused investor group. In 2013, the size of the National LegalCannabis Market was about 1. 5 billion, growing in 2014 to 2. 6 billion. At a sprawling marijuanabusiness expo in las vegas, he said ancillary companies are cashing in. All right. Lets see. What do we got here . Mark twain had a really great quote. He said that, when theres a gold rush on, its a good time to be in the pickandshovel business. And that is clearly happening right now. [ sirens wailing ] you can see it on the streets of denver, where guntoting guards and armored cars protect the currency of the new marijuana merchants. Dan sullivans blue line Security Company cant train people fast enough. We went from 6 employees to over 70, so that gives you an idea of, in eight months, what weve done. And at grow big, a gardensupply center for the cannabis trade thats living up to its name, sales have quadrupled in the past year. We started at 800 square feet less than four years ago. Were at 50,000 square feet, and were not stopping there. Owner oliver poiss hosts a weekly customer meetandgreet with free pot. [ electronic dance music plays ]. Catering to a clientele with nocturnal habits. This community is night owls. Were open 24 hours a day, every day of the year. We never close. I dont even have a key to the front door. 2014 launched poiss and many others on a trip from the margins of society to the mainstream. Prior to legalization, this was difficult. Ive gradually come to realize that its changed my life so much over the past year. Hillary cooper makes artisanal pipes for pot and hash oil, some selling for more than 500. I recently got a wholesale distributor that buys all of my work. I cant even keep up with my orders at this point. Every problem this industry faces is an opportunity for another entrepreneur to start a business to fill that gap. Colorados pot trade may be moving at breakneck speed, but many here still think its a bad idea. Do you have anything thats a little bit stronger than that . As for the williams family, theyre not looking back. Do you any sort of moral misgivings about this . Absolutely not. Were not here to make people start smoking marijuana. Thats not our intent. Were here to provide safe marijuana for people who have always been buying it and who want to buy it. What are you gonna look like two years from now, three years from now, five years from now . Well, were the costco of the grow, the starbucks of the retail. Yeah, thats what well look like. Itll be big. Coming up, legalization was supposed to kill the black market, so why is it thriving . You start off with a pound. If youre comfortable with the person that youre dealing with, then you offer them more than a pound. A visit to the underground pound. A visit to the underground when we come back. Pound. A visit to the underground when we come back. Pull up a chair. Gather round. So many ways to invite people to come together. Or you could just put out the sabra hummus and let the simple, fresh ingredients do the talking. Sabra. Welcome to the unofficial meal. Of the season on the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort, your sleep number setting. Does your bed do that . Right now our queen c4 mattress is only 1199, save 400. Ends soon. Visit sleepnumber. Com for a store near you. Running a Small Business is demanding. And thats why Small Business owners need more. Like internet thats up to the challenge. The gigspeed network from comcast business gives you more. With speeds up to 20 times faster than the average. That means powering more devices, more video conferencing, and more downloads in seconds, not minutes. Get fast internet and add phone and tv for only 34. 90 more per month. Comcast is building americas largest gigspeed network to give Small Businesses more. Call 18005016000 today. [ baroque music plays ] the legalization of pot means its now sold like this, in places that look more like a wholefoods than a head shop. The minute you say citrusy. Yeah, thats what it was. Is that it was . Yeah. For sure. Licensed, regulated, minimum age 21. Thank you. But if you think the marijuana trade is all on the upandup. Been so nice. You too. Take a look at colorados craigslist, where a booming black market in weed is just a click away. We contacted dozens of these sellers. Most wouldnt talk, but some did. You were in the army. Yes, sir. How many years . I served almost 10 years. I was in 11bravo my entire tour, with the infantry. Ive been everything from a rifleman private to a squad leader to an assistant team leader of a scoutsniper team. How many tours in iraq . Two. And. It was brutal. [ gunfire ] ben buckland left the army in 2013, physically and psychologically damaged. Hell yeah did you get injured over there . Yeah, yeah. I was injured once in fallujah, and i was injured once in basra, and i was injured once in afghanistan. I have a traumatic brain injury, so i forget things constantly. I get headaches for no apparent reason. My ability to curb my anger with the smallest ripples in life is really hindered. Like, i go off the hinge. Buckland was in desperate need of relief. What the va had to offer were pills that i could die from if i took too many at once, that i would die slowly from as i took them as prescribed. Cannabis allows me to have my life again, whereas i would probably be a threat to society. Legal weed brought him to colorado. So, you have your medicalmarijuana registry state of colorado red card. Yes. And so whats your. 75 plants. You can grow 75 yes. Thats a lot of cannabis, and buckland has found a ready market for his surplus. In a given year, what kind of income. I might make 10 grand a year. Just 60 of the pot consumed in colorado is sold legally. The rest comes from bigtime operators or homegrown suppliers like buckland. How does it work . So, i put out on craigslist i post around pueblo, denver, things like that, and people will email me and say, hey, i live around this area. I need this much. Im looking to spend this much. Right. Do you think you could help me out . Ill meet you up at that 24hour, all right . But its a commerce rationalized in a code words like donating and caregiving, not buying and selling. [ engine idling ] what up, man . Whats up, man . Theres no selling. Im not selling anything. Great, great. Great. Hes just giving me some money, and im just giving him some cannabis. Yeah, man. Just a thousand times before, you know . You know, he offers medicine to me for a donation. Ray green is a regular. Hey, thanks a lot. I appreciate it, man. He can buy in dispensaries, but buckland is just a phone call away. Being after hours, and the stores close at 7 00, and its convenient sometimes to have a caregiver. And cheaper taxes as high as 36 and purchasing limits on pot push buyers to the black market. Usually a gram is 10, but its topshelf, and its how you want it. If you like the grapetasting stuff, you can have the grapetasting stuff. If you want the gotosleep stuff, we can get the gotosleep stuff. And is it less expensive than if i went into a store . It would be. A third of the cost. Here. Got you that. Thank you. Somebodys gonna watch this and say, i dont care what his background is. I dont care what his life story is. This guy is a drug dealer. Youre a drug dealer, and what youre doing is wrong. What would you say to that person . I would say the state of colorado has decided that this particular drug is not a schedule i drug. And i would say that our president has said on tv that this drug is no more harmful or harmless than alcohol or tobacco. These people are not licensed to sell marijuana. John suthers was colorados attorney general for the past decade. A year into the new law, he says the pot underground is thriving. I think people say, well, geez. Theres legalization. How can there still be a black market . Where wheres the black market . The black market starts at a very basic level people going in, buying it legally, walking out, and selling it illegally. Thats how the kids are getting it. 38 of kids that have marijuana tell us they get it from somebody who bought it legally. The biggest problem, he says, is that colorado has become a pot exporter. The truly large black market is the extent to which were becoming the supplier of marijuana in states where its illegal. So we are the black market for nebraska. Were the black market for wyoming, utah, and apparently up to 40 other states in the United States that have indicated to us, weve seized coloradopackaged marijuana. In fact, nebraska and oklahoma are suing colorado in the u. S. Supreme court, arguing theyve suffered direct and significant harm from the pot crossing their borders. Suthers says the suit is without merit, but comes as no surprise. Youre the new mexico. We are. At least with marijuana, were competing with mexico. Are we eliminating the criminal element . Im not too sure. Theres certainly no indication that the presence of the cartels in colorado has been reduced. And then there are the wholesalers. Mike not his real name says he sells between 150 and 200 pounds of pot a year even to licensed shops. What does a pound go for . Between a range of 2,500 and 3,000. But i usually sell to people who sell it to other people. Ah. So im kind of like a broker, not really just a regular seller. How do you transport the stuff . You put it in the mail like everybody else does. I mean, you want to buy some sneakers from amazon, [chuckles] send them your address, and theyll put it in the mail. I mean, at the end of the day, right, would you get in a car and drive with a whole bunch of weed crosscountry . Mike says he keeps an attorney on retainer, though he thinks his chances of getting caught are slim. Its never really the actual weed that the police come after you for, unlike if youre in new york and you standing around and you have a blunt in your pocket or youre smoking a blunt, and theyre gonna throw you on the floor, tase you, and shoot you. Over here, theyll probably ask you, how you doing . Hows your day . So for now, mike keeps dealing. Colorado and its unofficial state flower have been good to him. You take your plant, you love your plant, you talk to your plant, and it gives you back. Up next, how far would you go to help your child . Come hell or high water, we were moving out here job, no job. Whatever it took, we were moving out here. A desperate journey for medical marijuana when we a desperate journey for medical marijuana when we continue. Colorados alluring landscape has drawn a lot of people here through the years, but its not the scenery thats bringing some folks here now. I got this. Braden fleming is 10 years old. We met him playing outside his Colorado Springs home. He and his family just moved here from texas. I know youre doing that on purpose. [ chuckles ] howdy. Im harry. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. For braden, it was a good day. Youre a handsome young man. Thank you. Youre welcome. But this is what it looks like on a bad day sudden, small, and uncontrollable seizures. Braden suffers from a form of epilepsy called doose syndrome. Can you talk about what its like for you . Well, it is kind of like closing my eyes sleeping, except im talking in my sleep, feels like. Yeah. Good job, buddy. Desperate for help they can only get in colorado, the flemings came here for one thing a rare type of medical marijuana. And remarkably, they dont even know if it will work. So, you moved your entire family, changed everything in your lives to come here to get this medicine that you havent even tried yet . Both right. Thats a big hope. Yeah, but its hope. Its hope. Bradens parents terry and wendy fleming. How old was braden when you began to realize he had some problems . He was 15 months old, and he was walking past me, and i saw his head drop, and he went. And then he just kept walking, and i went, oh, thats not good. We really didnt start to notice a lag until he started kindergarten. Thats when we really started getting concerned and saying, well, maybe hes not gonna grow out of this. And he hasnt. Do you ever watch sports . Yeah, yeah. We witnessed one right in the middle of our conversation. Or. I. Watch baseball. Was that one right there . Mmhmm. So you just had a little seizure right there. Mmhmm. But it was a short one. Just a little one. Yeah. Yeah. You cant control it, can you . Mnhmnh. It just happens. Mmhmm. Along with 12,000 other children nationwide, braden is on the waiting list for a medicine called charlottes web. Its named after charlotte figi, a colorado child with a severe form of epilepsy called dravet syndrome. [ breathing shakily ] this unsettling video Shows Charlotte before the medicine. And this is charlotte after. Shes now almost completely seizurefree. [ smacks lips ] charlottes web is a strain of marijuana that has very little thc, the property that is psychoactive, but it has a lot of cbds, the mystery compound that many believe has significant medicinal value. Im just gonna guess you are not cannabisusing people. No. No. Didnt know the first thing about it. [ laughs ] federal law prohibits transporting marijuana across state lines, so the flemings couldnt get charlottes web in texas, leaving them, they say, with little choice. We packed up our house, shoved three kids and two dogs in the van, and we drove out here. And here we are. Hows your new school . Its pretty good. I made some friends, but theres a kid next to me, and its trouble. Yeah . Really . Today he gave me a bad compliment. What he tell you . He said, hey, whereve you been, smoking weed . [ chuckling ] really . Thats what he said to you . Medicinal marijuana has been legal in colorado since 2001, with claims that it helps everything from arthritis to ptsd. But for serious scientists, the socalled healing ingredient remains something of an enigma. Cbd is something that has captured the national imagination, political imagination, the furor of the medical community. Does it work . Does it not work . Let us study it so we can find out. Dr. Edward maa runs the comprehensive Epilepsy Center at Denver Health hospital. Hes been studying the effect of charlottes web on kids with dravet syndrome. Charlottes web is one of the newest things in terms of our potential armamentarium. When we think about antiseizure drugs and the drugdevelopment pipeline, this is one of the things that has very, very exciting promise. But he cautions its overall effectiveness needs more study. Research Shows Charlottes web reduces seizures in less than a third of the children using it. The impact size is not as large as perhaps was being touted in parts of the media. 20 to 30 are having a pretty dramatic reduction, and it just tails off from there. We need to change the perspective of what people think of cannabis. Still, at least 200 families have moved to colorado just to get cha