Marijuana legalization in Colorado is 10 years old. Here’s the story of how it happened.

Ten years ago this month, Colorado voters did something that had never been done before in the world: They legalized the use and sale of marijuana at the state level.

Technically, voters in Washington state passed a legalization measure on the same day, Nov. 6, 2012, but Colorado can plausibly claim to be first because polls here closed earlier and stores began selling here earlier, as well.

The vote sparked a revolution around the world in cannabis policy — an area long seen as intractable. In states across the country and in other nations, “never gonna happen” changed rapidly to “happening right now.” Nineteen states, the District of Columbia and two U.S. territories have now passed legalization laws. Five more states have legalization initiatives on the ballot this year, with a sixth poised for a vote early next year.

President Joe Biden has issued pardons and moved to evaluate whether cannabis should be reclassified in federal drug laws. None of this would have happened without what first happened in Colorado, activists say.

“What you did changed the country,” Toi Hutchinson, the president and CEO of the Marijuana Policy Project, said at an anniversary event last month at the History Colorado Center.

[Read more at The Colorado Sun]