Mason Tvert, featured in the following wide-ranging Q&A, has played a key role in Colorado’s legalization of marijuana since 2005. Beginning with pro-pot campaigns at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado, Tvert and his SAFER organization advocated for statewide recreational marijuana legalization for eight years, working step by step on MMJ initiatives and then decriminalization on city and state levels until Amendment 64 passed in November 2012.

Now communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, Tvert has begun work on vaporizing marijuana laws outside of Colorado. Before states like Alaska and California steal him away from us, we sat down with Tvert to get his take on the black market, contact highs, smoking in public, and why he feels it’s too early to tell what the legal weed world is going to look like.