One year ago today, Colorado made history by being the first state to legalize weed. And over this past year, that's taught us an infinite amount of things about glorious legal marijuana, its users and its effects, things which we've nostalgically outlined for you below, with a happy tear in our bloodshot eye and the warm, burning ember of marijuana residue in our pipes.

One year ago today, Colorado made history by being the first state to legalize weed. And over this past year, that's taught us an infinite amount of things about glorious legal marijuana, its users and its effects, things which we've nostalgically outlined for you below, with a happy tear in our bloodshot eye and the warm, burning ember of marijuana residue in our pipes.

So, in honor of our much anticipated one year anniversary, here are 11 things Colorado's first year of recreational weed taught us.

1. Colorado has influenced the federal government's policies towards marijuana

There are three reasons why.

First, after Colorado legalized weed, so did Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Washington D.C. (although their legalization bill was squashed, sad face). If the feds were still on the anti-weed warpath, we doubt they'd let an increasing amount of their constituents light up legally.

Second, Congress just passed a bill to federally decriminalize medical marijuana. Specifically, the bill states that the government can no longer spend money on raiding medical marijuana facilities. And while that in itself by no means equals legalization or decriminalizes recreational pot, but it does point towards a more accepting attitude towards weed on the federal level. It's a step in the right direction, and with issues as controversial as legal weed, Congress has to take small steps in order to achieve federal legalization or decriminalization of recreational pot as to not bunch the collective panties of our nation's pearl-clutching conservative Stepford wives and golf husbands.

And finally, despite the fact that weed is federally illegal, income tax from marijuana workers and dispensary businesses is still collected and used by the federal government. The government is profiting off marijuana, whether it's legal from sea to shining sea or not, and if Colorado hadn't paved the way for that, Uncle Sam's wallet would be a little less obese.

2. Other states are a little jealous of Colorado

One side effect of Colorado's recreational weed program no one ever expected was inter-state jealousy. This little factoid is perfectly evidenced by Nebraska and Oklahoma's recent lawsuit against the state of Colorado, which claims that the influx of legal Colorado weed into their humble states has overwhelmed local police department's ability to enforce their anti-marijuana regimes.

The lawsuit also argues that Colorado does not have the authority to pass laws that conflict with the federal prohibition on marijuana. By legalizing weed, the states claim, Colorado is violating the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

We spent a whole article explaining why that lawsuit is a bullshit-y trip into the land of irrelevancy, but for our purposes here, let's get one thing straight: Colorado is making bank on legal weed. We're over here, rolling joints with $20 bills and Nebrasklahoma wants in on the riches. What better way to cash in than to sue us? We mean, what else is going on over there, Little League tryouts and corn-growing competitions? Yeah, we're going to file that lawsuit under "In your dreams."

Bottom line is that a year's worth of legal Colorado kush has started other states thinking on how they can get a piece of that sweet weed profit ass without doing the leg-work for legalization.

3. People don't know where to smoke it

Despite aggressive marketing campaigns and media blitzes that tried fruitlessly to alert Coloradans that they can't smoke anywhere but inside on private property, people still just aren't quite sure when and where they can get baked.

Because of this, police in Denver and Boulder issued record numbers of public consumption tickets this year. In Denver alone, police issued 668 citations for smoking weed in public in just the first three quarters of this year in Denver, which is a  471 percent increase compared to 2013.

That was a huge learning experience for us all, which is why we may or may or may not have built an underground smoking lair/ sex dungeon where the only handcuffing going on is … okay you get the picture.

4. It's had zero effect on the black market

Although a major part of the marketing of Amendment 64 focused on recreational weed's ability to destroy the black market, no such thing occurred. Thanks to the high price of recreational weed and the continued easy access to black market blunts, Colorado's underground weed market is still alive and well, much like Elvis or Tupac. 

Plus, it's hard to measure the effect of legal weed on the black market. There's not a ton of underground drug lords who would willingly give their information out to drug tracking agencies so they could measure how much legal weed is kicking their ass. And, since part of Colorado's weed legalization initiative was to allow police and the DEA to focus on more pressing matters like meth and face-melting cocaine, there is less attention than ever being given to tracking black market marijuana sales.

The best we can do to measure happenings in the black market is to talk to dealers themselves, which duh, we did. One black market dealer we interviewed told us that it's not legal weed that's affecting black market prices, it's the sheer amount of both legal and illegal marijuana that's flooding the market. However, the effect, he said, is negligible because there's such a high demand for black market Colorado weed in other states that it more than makes up for the high-supply problem here in our little quadrilateral. You can read that interview here.

5. It's turning people into weed snobs

Another thing we learned from our friend the weed dealer is that legal weed is turning people into pinkies-out weed snobs. Because there is so much weed here now, there is a staggering variety of strains and intake methods. That means that people's weed snobbery is at an all time high here. Suddenly, pot is becoming like wine, craft beer or cigars; it's something to get into, and to learn about intimately so that you can seem smart and kewl to your friends.  Whereas a few years ago, the mere fact that you had weed made you the King of the Land, today's marijuana consumers have developed highly refined palates for the stuff, even going so far as to get uppity about their weed's origins and request organic marijuana.

Can you imagine inquiring as to what sort of growing method was used to produce the eighth you just bough from your drug dealer, X-Blade like five years ago? LOL forever.

6. Coloradans smoke more weed more often than we thought

Marijuana legalization has made it possible to uncover some really interesting stats about weed use here in the square state, like the fact that 23 percent of Colorado's population consumes weed near daily. A much smaller number of us, nine percent, use it monthly. That's 32 percent of our population who like to party. Just … let that sink in to your brain like your bong smoke sinks into your tapestry.

7. It's making real estate prices explode

In April, the Denver Business Journal reported that industrial warehouse developers were "taking orders for new space faster than they can get it built." Developers are buying up buildings , or tearing them down to build new ones, with the express purpose of leasing at high rents to marijuana businesses, something that has driven up both commercial and residential rent prices enormously.

In fact, Denver's housing market grew so much in the last year, that it's rental price increase rate is second only to San Francisco, aka the world's most expensive city. Marijuana-sector jobs and weed-loving people are partially to blame for that.

And you know what we learned from that? We're too poor to live in Denver. What's up, Longmont?

8. It's made Colorado a tourist destination for more than just skiers

It used to be that the only reason people came to Colorado was to slide down a slippery mountain on some arrangement of planks or to bring their privileged teen on a college visit, but now, thanks to legal weed, Colorado's tourism sector is juicy as Nicki Minaj's butt.

MMJ tourism agencies and weed-friendly hotels are popping up faster than zits on your post-pubescent t-zone, and suddenly, our little backyard is full of khaki-wearing out-of-towners on reefer safari.

In fact, tourists are responsible for a jaw-dropping 90 percent of recreational pot sales in mountain resort communities, which is pretty solid proof that skiing isn't the only thing people are flying into DIA for.

9. Edible labeling has everyone freaking out like they're Maureen Dowd eating mislabeled edibles

Two high-profile deaths were linked to edible marijuana earlier in the year, and because of that, parents started voicing concerns that mislabeled edibles could be mistaken for candy by enterprising children who refuse to wait for dinner for a blood sugar rush. Not good for legal weed.

And then, a little thing called the "Maureen Dowd" incident occurred when New York Times editor Maureen Dowd OD'd on a Colorado edible and wrote a much-derided editorial about her long, strange trip on "the THC." No one took her seriously and mocked her endlessly for eating an entire candy bar when she'd never had an edible before, but despite her public shaming, the incident drew attention to edible labeling issues and how certain edible products contained either much more or much less THC than their labels suggested. In fact, one study conducted by the Denver Post found that Colorado had a widespread mislabeling issue when it came to their THC bounty.

The federal government has made it clear that they want to address this issue, and the state legislature is expected to tackle the edibles issue for the second straight session, which begins in January.

But by and large, edible mislabeling mishaps have been isolated incidents. Plus, what else can you expect from a burgeoning edible industry that, up until a few months ago, wasn't able to lab test its own products and standardize THC concentrations?

9. Money happened. So much tax money.

Denver alone collected $7.6 million in taxes through the first three quarters of the year, and that's without data from the last quarter which isn't available yet. Colorado as a whole has collected more than $60.1 million in taxes and fees on recreational marijuana through October. Taken together medical and recreational pot stores have sold more than $574 million worth of marijuana. Not bad, Colorado!

10. It's created so, so many new jobs

The rise of legal weed has created a boatload of jobs within the marijuana sector, but also a staggering amount of auxiliary jobs related to newly-legal pot.

For example, there used to be two or three lawyers in Denver that did all the marijuana work and now there’s 50. There are professors and faculty at marijuana universities, marijuana tourism operations. cannabis advocacy groups, edible makers and manufacturers, marijuana writers, weed website developers, dispensary accounts, marijuana-related construction, and shit … we could keep going.

The most recent marijuana job-creation stat we could find was from May, which found that Colorado's legal weed industry had created 10,000 new jobs as of May 2014. By that logic, it's safe to assume that several thousand more cropped up towards the end of the year.

10. Legal weed did so well this year, that it will be cheaper in 2015

Legal weed went so swimmingly in Colorado in 2014, that next year, even more recreational dispensaries are expected to open  Plus, many big industrial grows will move to the online arena to sell their products, which we speculate will cause a flood of new product. All that increased supply should spell lower prices for legal weed. In fact, recreational prices actually decreased 9 percent in Colorado since January.

11. It's still too early to identify major trends

One year is a long time if you're a fruit fly, but for the rest of us, a year is too short a time period to see what the true effects of legal weed are. Sure, we can measure them monetarily, and in terms of societal opinion, but when it comes to how it effects jobs, health, and other state's efforts to follow our lead, you need a few more years to observe reliable trends. Plus, 2014 was the first year of legal weed, which could potentially mean it's the most active. There's the greatest amount of discussion and advocacy during the nascent stage of any major legalization effort, so it's possible that the fervor around legal weed will die down in the years to come. It's also possible that interest in weed and recreational sales will only increase from here on out, but like we said, a year isn't that long.

But it's still been a very, very good year, and we're endlessly thankful to live in a place where weed is legal, even if that newfound legality is still teaching us more than we thought we had to know. #blessed