Nearly half of the 18 medical marijuana dispensary applications that Clark County commissioners approved have an uncertain fate, as they failed to win state support. The development has brought about frustration and unanswered questions among county officials and applicants who are now in limbo.
Medical marijuana dispensaries are on the verge of becoming a reality in Nevada but that doesn’t mean the smoke has cleared on a number of pressing issues related to the medicinal use of the drug.
Preliminary estimates suggest that Nevada’s medical marijuana program could generate as much as $10 million in excise taxes to the state in the upcoming two-year budget.
Medical marijuana patients in much of rural Nevada will have a long drive to get their medicine, based on where applications for dispensaries were filed by groups seeking to enter the business.
Supporters of Nevada’s new medical marijuana industry said they scored a victory Tuesday when the state decided not to cap pot cultivation at this time.
The state’s public college campuses plan to continue to ban pot even as Nevada is moving toward opening its first medical marijuana dispensaries early next year, the Board of Regents indicated Thursday.
Law enforcement agencies gathered more than 6,000 marijuana plants from what they called “gardens” in the mountains of Lincoln County earlier this week. The two-day raid north of Las Vegas involved about 50 officers from Lincoln and White Pine counties, Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas police, the Nevada National Guard, the Bureau of Land Management and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Sunset Road in Henderson might become the main corridor of medical marijuana dispensaries for the city.
Issues raised at the first meeting of Nevada medical marijuana panel Wednesday ranged from employment protections for patients to ensuring that patients who grow their own will be allowed to continue to do so.
Clark County commissioners plan a three-day period of meetings starting on June 4 to go through 81 applications for medical marijuana dispensaries.
