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The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has made moves to reclassify marijuana, making it a type of legal but regulated medicine, like Tylenol with codeine or some steroids.

With the reclassification, 26 states where cannabis is currently illegal will need to decide whether they want to take action to stop the sale of cannabis in their state or figure out how to regulate the newly legal drug.

A few states such as North Carolina have laws on the books saying cannabis will automatically become legal once the federal change goes into effect.

But the regulation of cannabis is nothing new in Colorado and Washington. These two states have more than a decade of experience writing and enforcing laws to control the marijuana marketplace.

I'm an economist who specializes in forecasting how various regulations affect industries such as legal recreational marijuana, alcohol and tobacco. Let's take a look at how Colorado and Washington approached the problem—and what other states can learn from their experience.

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