Economics

Medical Marijuana Brings Investment to Colorado

It's a prospering industry

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Colorado's thriving medical marijuana business isn't just named for the color of today's green, potent pot. It's the color of the money being made in the medical marijuana industry. Steve Kroft goes to the Rocky Mountain state to report on a business that's legal there and 16 other states, but in the eyes of the federal government is still as illegal as dealers selling heroin or LSD. "Rocky Mountain High" will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. ET and 7:00 p.m. PT.

Kroft goes to Denver to visit a few of the city's 204 medical marijuana dispensaries—shops so numerous, they outnumber Starbucks and McDonald's combined by nearly threefold. The state of Colorado, with five million people, boasts a total of 537 medical pot dispensaries and more than 100,000 authorized medical marijuana patients.