Day: June 5, 2014

Several months ago, medical marijuana was stuck in neutral in Southern Nevada. Today, it’s full speed ahead for the licensing and opening of dispensaries in unincorporated Clark County, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas. Local elected officials appear to have finally conquered whatever irrational fears they might have had about legal, taxed sales of an otherwise prohibited drug — and they appear to have listened to most of the concerns of the public and the industry in regulating the production of the narcotic.

The Clark County Commission has entertained a couple of tax increases over the past year despite persistently high unemployment, tens of thousands of underwater mortgages and general taxpayer struggles to recover from the effects of the valley’s economic crash. The commission considered a sales tax hike to boost police operating budgets and a property tax increase to prop up University Medical Center, even as the county resumed handing out pay raises to its employee bargaining groups.