Washington state made history yesterday as the first in the US to legalise marijuana possession for adult recreational use.
The occasion was celebrated by dozens of users near Seattle's famed Space Needle tower amid blaring reggae music.
The public gathering defied a key provision of the state's landmark marijuana law, which forbids users from lighting up outside the privacy of their homes.
Hours earlier, Seattle's city attorney issued a stern warning that pot smoking in public would not be tolerated and that violators of the law faced $100 fines.
But the local prosecutor's statement was contradicted by the Seattle Police Department's own instructions to its officers to limit their enforcement actions to warnings.
Passed by voters last month as a ballot measure called Initiative 502, the new marijuana law removes criminal sanctions for anyone 21 or older possessing an ounce or less of pot for personal recreational use. It also legalises possession of up to 16 ounces of solid cannabis-infused goods, such as brownies or cookies.
However, driving under the influence of cannabis, or imbibing in public places remain illegal.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article