In Clovis, a town of about 40,000 people less than 10 miles from Texas, Earl Henson and two business partners pooled their resources to convert an old gun store and shooting range into a gun store. cannabis and a complementary grow room at a Main Street address.

“I can’t explain how happy I am,” said Henson, a former real estate agent who says his affection for marijuana was a burden in the past. This week he started harvesting the first crop for a cannabis store called Earl and Tom’s. “I think those cities that are near Texas, for the next two years, it’s going to change their economies.”

In southern New Mexico, Mayor Javier Perea of ​​Sunland Park says marijuana retailers can set up shop anywhere in the small town bordered by the Rio Grande and fenced along the US border with Mexico.

He said about 30 marijuana businesses have applied for licensing in the city of just 17,000 people, banking on tourism near El Paso and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.

Perea hopes the industry will create economic opportunities and tax revenues to strengthen city services. Local governments will receive a minority share of the state’s 12% excise tax on recreational marijuana sales, as well as a share of additional sales taxes. Medical cannabis remains tax exempt.

“The only thing we’re going to struggle with is that we’re going to run out of buildings” for new businesses, he said.

Legal experts warn that people who buy cannabis in New Mexico and choose to return home to other states risk criminal penalties, arrest and incarceration, including in Texas.

Paul Armento, deputy director of drug policy group NORML, said Texas was a top state for marijuana possession arrests and that possession of marijuana concentrates, which are legal in New Mexico , is punishable in Texas by up to two years in prison and a fine of $10,000.

Marijuana also remains illegal under federal law to possess, use, or sell — a standard that applies to large swathes of federal lands and New Mexico Indian Country.

As some tribes in New Mexico move forward with cannabis operations, Santa Clara Pueblo this week issued a notice to residents saying cannabis is prohibited in the pueblo due to federal laws. Residents who grow cannabis plants could be evicted, the advisory warns, and the tribal council could seize their land cessions.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham on Thursday touted the state’s legalization of recreational cannabis. She said the broad legalization of marijuana responds to popular demands and generates opportunities for small businesses.

“That’s what consumers want,” said Lujan Grisham, a candidate for re-election in November. “We have the potential for 11,000 additional workers, jobs in places where young people can work and stay, like Torrance County and Texico and Tucumcari and Raton.”

Recently retired US sailor Kyle Masterson and his wife, Ivy, a Hispanic army veteran with business consulting experience, are taking advantage of the state’s micro-enterprise license to grow up to 200 plants for a fee. lump sum of $1,000.

The Rio Rancho couple, who are raising three children, make a career change in their forties to cannabis. They searched more remote areas for an affordable building to grow high-quality marijuana under lights and settled in a vacant old movie theater in little Cuba at the foot of the Jemez Mountains.

“It was fine, it was fine and out of a vision of what we could do,” said Kyle Masterson, who served in four combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. “We are used to working in austere environments without too many guidelines and doing our best.”

The New Mexican contributed to this report.