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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.

Voters In Two Oregon Counties To Decide Fate Of Marijuana Businesses

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File photo. County commissioners banned marijuana businesses in Klamath and Grant counties last year.

Voters in two Oregon counties will decide in the May primary whether to allow marijuana-related businesses. County commissioners banned marijuana retailers and growers in unincorporated parts of Klamath and Grant counties last year.

But local residents gathered enough signatures to force a vote to reverse that.

Edward Medina, who runs a medical marijuana dispensary in the city of Klamath Falls, said the ban means he can't source his product from local farmers. He's hoping voters there choose to overturn the ban, even though 56 percent of them voted against legalization in the first place.

"Right now I would say it's kind of a coin toss as to whether or not this is going to pass,” Medina said.

It's an even steeper climb in Grant County, where 65 percent of voters said no to legalized marijuana in 2014. The local bans don't affect the personal use of marijuana.

More Oregonians will have the chance to affirm or reject bans on marijuana businesses in November. That's when voters in dozens of cities across the state will weigh in on pot ordinances passed by city councils in the wake of a legislative measure that allows them to ban marijuana businesses, but only if local voters sign off.