Environmental wariness and outdoor cultivation will be key for future legal marijuana production in Colorado.

When recreational marijuana use becomes legal in Colorado on January 1, medical retailers expect demand to increase by 400 per cent. Increasing supply to meet that demand will carry with it dramatic economic and environmental costs.

Dr. Judson Somerville, a pain specialist in Laredo, Tex., received $67,000 in speaking fees, travel and meals in 2013 to promote a powerful and addictive painkiller called Subsys, according to a new federal database of payments that drug companies make to physicians.

“The crop right now is sellable,” Colorado hemp farmer Jim Denny told NPR reporters earlier this year. “I’ve already had people contact me on my website saying, ‘We know you’re growing stuff and we want to buy it from you already.’ And we haven’t even put it in the ground.”

University of Texas just published their research into the long-term effects of marijuana

rijuana—legal or otherwise—requires a lot of power to produce. And in the Pacific Northwest, utilities are now facing the complicated task of efficiently meeting that demand while navigating a set of opposing laws.

Just how much power the marijuana industry uses is tough to judge, and estimating future demand is even trickier. The recreational market is just getting started in Washington, where legal sales began this summer. Since July 8, the state is reporting just shy of $24 million in sales—and the pace seems to be accelerating. Sales in July averaged about $146,450 per day and so far in October have reached almost $400,000 each day.

How does that translate into power demand forecasts?

"When I started to take care of marijuana in 1967, I had no doubt that it was a very harmful drug which, unfortunately, was being used by a growing number of young people unaware that they could not understand or did not listen to the warnings about its dangers. My intention was to describe scientifically the nature and degree of this danger. In the three following years, while browsing the scientific literature, medical and profane, my opinion began to change. I came to understand that I, like many other people in this country, I was subjected to brainwashing. My beliefs about the dangers of marijuana had little empirical foundation. When I completed the research I became convinced that cannabis was considerably less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, legal drugs most commonly used.

What do a Brooklyn-based fashion photographer, a math and science teacher from the Midwest, and a manager at a private Manhattan art gallery have in common? They all smoke weed.

Despite their varying job descriptions and salaries, methods of storage (stashed in special boxes bought for them by a significant other; in kitchen drawers; in designer makeup bags; even in the freezer), or means of getting high (from odorless vaporizers, edibles, and raw juice to a good, old fashioned joint), all of them are after the same result: to find relief, or "zen out," after a long day at work.

As history is made and states across the nation set out to enact some form of marijuana legislation, the requirement for probable cause is bound to change as well. Currently, there is a very low threshold that needs to be met to allow a police officer to search a person, car or house. However, that is all about to change.

On Nov. 4, citizens in Alaska, Florida, Oregon and Washington, D.C., will cast their ballots on marijuana initiatives, and other states are also likely to consider legalization in upcoming elections. Colorado, the first state to allow the sale of recreational marijuana, is expected to take in $60 million to $70 million this year in taxes from legal pot sales, according to the Denver Business Journal. Cash-strapped states stand to collect millions if they legalize the drug.

“Never be afraid to scrap what you got and start over, because you’re never scrapping your knowledge” – Mark Williams | The Firefly