Hedonistic Nevada still says no to legal weed

Nevada is known for letting just about anything slide, whether it's booze, bets or brothels. But even here there are limits.

It has been OK to smoke pot to treat illness for 10 years. But don't think about selling it. Lately, federal agents and local police have taken notice, raiding several pot shops in and around Las Vegas.

All of it has pot activists scratching their heads: How is a state that has long lured visitors with promises of unconstrained debauchery stricter with pot than its more wholesome neighbors of Colorado, Arizona and California?

"I really thought they would leave us alone," said Pierre Werner, whose family's pot shop was raided and who now faces federal charges. "No one should go to prison for a plant."

Political leaders and historians say these activists don't know Nevada.

Sure, they say, the state has libertarian leanings and is generally willing to prosper from activities that most states have declared repugnant.

For many, however, pot is for hippies.

And Nevada, borne in the rugged days of the Wild West, is no place for hippies.

"The attitude was real men drank, whored and gambled -- these are the vices of frontier men and women," said Guy Rocha, Nevada's former archivist.

"When it comes to drugs, Nevada has looked at it as, 'that's what those wild people in California do, or New York or Oregon,' " he said.

Nevada passed its medical marijuana law in 2000, four years after California passed its first-in-the-nation program. In all, 15 states and the District of Columbia allow it.

Advocates say the strict Nevada law makes it nearly impossible to legally smoke pot. Patients cannot buy or sell marijuana and can only grow seven plants for personal use.

Nevada's health department, which regulates medical marijuana, tells patients it cannot provide information about how to grow cannabis.

During the past year, at least 27 pot shops have opened in Las Vegas, according to weedmaps.com, an online dispensary and physician locator service.

The discreet outposts have menus with whimsical names such as the Incredible Hulk, Purple Monster, Green Cheese and Pineapple Crack. Transactions are called donations, not purchases. Customers are patients. Marijuana is medicine. Police, however, still means trouble.

The stores, many saying they are referral services for doctors willing to recommend marijuana, were largely left alone at first. Then came reports that undercover police officers were making buys at the dispensaries.

In September, it was official. Local and federal investigators served search warrants at several marijuana shops in and around Las Vegas. Law enforcement officials refuse to discuss the raids, saying the investigations remains open.

Federal law continues to classify marijuana as a controlled substance, prohibited from being prescribed by doctors.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said federal prosecutors will not pursue people who sell marijuana in compliance with a state law, but he has warned that people who violate both federal and state laws will be targeted.

More than a decade ago, marijuana proponents enticed by Nevada's hedonistic reputation began targeting the state.

Until 2000, Nevada had one of the nation's strictest marijuana laws, when possession of a single joint was a felony punishable by a year or more in prison.

The earliest campaigns to loosen such punishments were easy sells. The medical marijuana law then removed criminal penalties on the use, possession and cultivation of pot by patients with written documentation from their physician.

Since 2000, activists have spent $12u2007million trying to make Nevada the first state to legalize pot. The Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project led five failed efforts to pass pro-marijuana laws in Nevada.

Law enforcement agencies, anti-drug activists and politicians in rural Northern Nevada have led the opposition against the ballot measures. The casino industry, long eager to portray a balance of propriety and rebellion, has been silent.

Activists are expected to try again to legalize pot in Nevada in 2012, but politicians and marijuana lobbyists predict another loss.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, a martini-drinking advocate of sex tourism, said he is open to legalizing pot but doesn't think voters are going to anytime soon.

"The people are not ready," he said, "no matter how we are characterized."