In New York they belong to summer like the smell of barbecues, exhaust fumes or rubbish rotting away: you could always smell the plumes of marijuana here.

Now smoking weed is also legal.

Anyone who is of legal age can light a joint wherever smoking is permitted - except in the car.

Now in nineteen states and Washington DC, it is legal for anyone over the age of 21 to buy and use marijuana, not just for medicinal purposes.

In most of the other countries, too, smoking weed is treated as a minor offense.

Unlike in Canada, for example, consumption and trade are still illegal under federal law.

Who sets the rules?

Where marijuana is completely legal, the state regulates exactly who sells it, how concentrated it is, and how many hemp plants you can grow in your home.

In Colorado, for example, where smoking weed has long been legal, anyone can own and pass on around thirty grams, and up to twelve plants are allowed per household.

Unlike in New York, you shouldn't smoke weed in public in Colorado.

In the state in the west, voters had already spoken out in favor of legalization in 2012, which came into force two years later. In the years that followed, a highly regulated vendor structure was built and millions of dollars in additional tax revenue was passed on to the school system. New York still has that to come: the licenses for the hash shops are to be distributed soon. So far, they have been limited to medical cannabis and certain CBD products.

The authorities in Colorado have been documenting the experience with legalization since the beginning. The state took $ 387 million in taxes and fees from the marijuana business in 2020 - up from 67 million six years earlier. Data on smoking weed is based on self-reports in anonymous surveys - but it can be assumed that many people are more willing to express themselves truthfully about their own consumption as a result of the decriminalization. In 2014, 13.5 percent of adults said they had smoked marijuana in the past 30 days, compared to 19 percent in 2019.

The sales figures also suggest that the number of adult users increased.

Last year, marijuana sales exceeded $ 2 billion for the first time.

The increase compared to 2014 was therefore 220 percent - illegal sales are not counted, however.

Authorities also noted a 120 percent increase in arrests for driving stoned.

In contrast, the number of hospital admissions for marijuana abuse remained stable.

The judicial authority that published the report found constant trends among young people.

Smoking weed is still illegal for them.

The number of young consumers decreased slightly from 12.6 percent in 2014 to 9.8 percent in 2019.