LOS ANGELES: Pot-smokers lit up in Washington state on Thursday (Friday) as recreational marijuana became legal in a historic first for the United States, clouded by the fact that federal law still bans the practice.

Midnight pot parties were reported across the western US state as a new law came into force following a November 6 referendum to legalize private consumption of marijuana for recreational use.

Some 200 people gathered at midnight outside Seattle’s appropriately named Space Needle, a futuristic tower that dominates the skyline, to light up and celebrate their new-found freedom.

The law made it legal for those over 21 to possess and use up to an ounce (28 grams) of marijuana. A number of US states have already legalized pot for medicinal purposes, but Washington is the first allowing it purely for fun.

Colorado residents approved a similar law last month, on the same day President Barack Obama’s was re-elected, but its pot-lovers will have to wait until January 5 to light up with impunity.

But even while Washington’s marijuana fans partied, the limits of the new law were underlined: the Space Needle gathering was technically illegal, since the new law allows only private, not public, consumption of weed.

Officers took no action, and the Seattle Police Department said that for the moment it will only issue verbal warnings, even though in theory they could impose $50 fines for smoking marijuana on a street or in a public square.

Meanwhile, the state’s financial chiefs are already rubbing their hands at the prospect of 25 percent tax revenues levied on legally sold marijuana, money which previously stayed strictly in the underground economy.