First Las Vegas-area marijuana dispensary to open Monday

Clark County's first legal medical marijuana dispensary plans to open Monday after months of delays.

Euphoria Wellness got final state and county approvals this week, a spokesman said Thursday.

The news, a relief for patients and advocates, came more than two years after the Nevada Legislature voted to allow marijuana dispensaries.

"It's pretty exciting," said state Sen. Tick Segerblom, who sponsored that bill. "It's one small step, but it's pretty amazing."

For its first two days, Euphoria will sell only to invited customers who pre-registered. On Wednesday, it will open to anyone with a state-issued medical marijuana card. The dispensary is at 7780 S. Jones Blvd. in the southwestern Las Vegas Valley.

Kenya Peoples of Las Vegas, who has been growing her own medical marijuana, is one of those invited Monday and said she's excited to make a legal purchase.

"I want to be one of the first ones," said Peoples, who uses marijuana for chronic back pain and to stimulate her appetite.

Growing your own marijuana has been legal — with a doctor's permission and a state card — since 2001 in Nevada. There are 9,542 patient cardholders, more than 6,700 of them in Clark County, plus another 672 people authorized to grow for someone else as "caregivers."

But not until 2013 did lawmakers vote to legalize commercial growing and sales.

Euphoria long wanted to be the first dispensary in the state to open. Its owners once planned to begin sales as early as February or March.

But the bureaucratic tangles and the wait for commercial growers' crops to be ready caused unexpected delays, frustrating patients and advocates.

"I'm pulling my hair out," Segerblom said in late June as the wait continued.

Since commercial growers' crops were not yet available, Euphoria planned to open using marijuana bought from home growers. That's allowed under state law, but the dispensary soon ran into a problem.

County officials first told the dispensary it could buy only 2½ ounces from each home grower. They cited a provision in state law saying a patient can only possess that much "usable marijuana" at one time.

Such small amounts would make marijuana prohibitively expensive to test and would have made it virtually impossible for the dispensary to gather enough to open for business.

Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, said that kind of limit on patient sales was never intended by the state Legislature.

Euphoria considered suing the county, but ultimately nixed its plan to use home-grown marijuana and will open next week with commercially grown crops. Like all marijuana sold in the state, their products have been tested and approved by a state-licensed laboratory.

Supply is still limited, and Euphoria said it will limit each patient to half an ounce of marijuana until more crops are ready.

A dispensary in Northern Nevada, Silver State Relief in Sparks, beat Euphoria to the punch. It became the first legal dispensary in the state on July 31.

Contact Eric Hartley at ehartley@reviewjournal.com or 702-550-9229. Find him on Twitter: @ethartley