Cannabis and Nevada

Nevada voters approved recreational use and sale of cannabis in 2016. As has been the pattern in many US states, most of the Democratic-leaning counties in the state backed legalization while most of the Republican-leaning ones opposed it. Retail sales started in July 2017. As per Nevada laws, voter approved initiatives cannot be changed for three years so cannabis laws have remained unchanged with the upcoming session in 2019 being the first opportunity to make amendments to the laws based on what has worked and what has not.

61 provisional retail licenses were approved in Dec 2018 which would nearly double the retail outlets. However some of these licenses are in jurisdictions that have prohibited cannabis sales so it is up to the license holder now to educate the local governments of these jurisdictions about the benefits of cannabis legalization.

Sales of cannabis have exceeded expectations. In the first year of legal sales, the cannabis industry made $989.7 million worth of contributions to the economy, including auxiliary businesses that supply, outfit, and shelter cannabis companies. The industry also brought 8,300 full-time equivalent jobs to the state. In 2018, tax revenues exceeded annual projections with two months remaining, $50.32 million being the amount projected. Clarke County planned to use its taxes to provide affordable housing for the needy.

'Nevada marijuana sales for 2019 reached $692 million, a 20% increase from fiscal year 2018, but lost sales stemming from the market disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic is throwing cold water on future projections', according to MJBizDaily.

Some high value acquisitions have happened in the recent past with companies buying over others to mainly corner licenses.

One of the areas for improvement that Nevada is looking at is the introduction of cannabis lounges. Lawmakers have toured San Francisco to visit the cannabis lounges there. There are plans to open lounges mainly in Las Vegas and Clarke County. It is expected that the cannabis lounges will provide a boost to tourism in the state.

At least 35 US states have legalized cannabis for medical use so far. The federal US government however continues to keep cannabis in the Schedule 1 list of banned substances saying that it has no medicinal value. The list of US states that have legalized adult recreational cannabis is available here. All these states have legalized cannabis for adult recreational use, aimed specifically at improving public health, ensuring equity,  reducing crime, decreasing the black market, improving law enforcement, reforming criminal justice, improving the economy, agriculture and industry, to name just a few reasons.

Listed below are articles taken from various media related to the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of your truly at the time of reading the article.   

'More than a dozen new dispensaries could open in Nevada’s booming retail marijuana market in the coming weeks after a judge gave the go-ahead Thursday to companies that underwent background checks and won licenses.

State marijuana regulators said as many as 36 stores could open.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/nevada-judge-gives-ok-for-more-retail-cannabis-stores-to-open/



'Nevada marijuana sales for 2019 reached $692 million, a 20% increase from fiscal year 2018, but lost sales stemming from the market disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic is throwing cold water on future projections.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/nevada-marijuana-sales-up-20-percent-in-2019-but-covid-19-impact-slows-progress/


'More than 15,000 people who were convicted for low-level marijuana possession in Nevada have been automatically pardoned under a resolution from the governor that was unanimously approved by the state’s Board of Pardons Commissioners on Wednesday.

 The measure extends unconditional clemency to individuals with possession convictions of up to one ounce from January 1986 to January 2017. It was introduced to the board by Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) last week.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/nevada-pardons-more-than-15000-people-with-marijuana-convictions-under-governors-resolution/

'"The budget that we just discussed that I am preparing has changed that, and we're going to use the tax proceeds from the sale of marijuana to go directly to our K-12 education system," Sandoval proclaimed.

Governor-elect Steve Sisolak has proposed doing the same thing during his campaign, so that will likely be one of the line items that doesn't change off the bat unless the tax again becomes part of end-of-the-session negotiations in June.'
https://www.lasvegasnow.com/news/local-news/sneak-peek-of-one-on-one-with-sandoval-governor-answers-marijuana-money-education-questions/1608059980


'Nevadans approved recreational marijuana use and sales in the 2016 election, and those sales started in July 2017. Nevada law prevents lawmakers from changing the language of the voter-approved initiative for three years, meaning that the upcoming session will be their first chance to make adjustments.

After some 18 months of legal sales, lawmakers are looking at what’s worked — and what hasn’t — in hopes of keeping the industry relatively stable.'
https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada-lawmakers-prepared-to-tweak-states-marijuana-laws-1573083/


'In December 2018, Nevada issued 61 provisional adult-use retail licenses, which would nearly double the number of rec stores serving the market.

It’s unclear how that expansion, however, might affect future sales.

State officials stressed at the time that many of the provisional licenses are in jurisdictions that don’t allow cannabis establishments. That means licensees hoping to open stores in those areas need those local governments to change their minds.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/chart-nevada-cannabis-sales-plateau/


'Among the greatest needs is to find a solution to aid the 195 families and 91 youths who, on average, are in the Community Queue awaiting housing.

To do that, Schiller recommended that the marijuana funds be used to scale up transitional and permanent housing to add more than 1,200 beds, while also securing master leases and developing incentives for affordable housing with developers and landlords.'
https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/clark-county/clark-county-plan-evolves-to-use-pot-fees-for-homeless-programs-1621878/


'A proposed law for the 2019 Nevada Legislature could prove to be a remedy for what is seen as one of the biggest issues facing the booming cannabis industry in the Silver State'
https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/pot-news/proposed-bill-could-let-nevada-marijuana-businesses-work-with-banks/


“There’s so many misconceptions about the industry still,” Powers said. “But this is the reality of our business. It's a slow process."

Harvest was one of two consumption lounges toured Monday by Nevada legislators, in town on a one-day fact finding trip with San Francisco marijuana officials and business owners to learn best practices for implementing the consumption lounges back home. Clark County and Las Vegas officials have explored the possibility of such lounges as far back as September of last year, and San Francisco is the only major U.S. city to offer full-scale facilities where the plant can legally be smoked, vaped, dabbed or eaten.'
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2018/nov/19/nevadans-visit-san-francisco-marijuana-lounges/


'Owners would be able to enact a cover charge and serve food on the premises, per the new ordinance, as long as the food is not marijuana-laced. Alcoholic beverage sales in separate rooms on the premises would also be allowed, as long as the drinks being sold contain less than 11 percent alcohol by volume.'
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2018/aug/28/las-vegas-officials-see-marijuana-lounges-opening/


'“What we really need to get this tourism off the ground are these pot lounges, so we can actually legitimately say,‘Come to Nevada, purchase it and there’s a place to use it,” he told host Sam Shad.'
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2019/jan/02/segerblom-marijuana-lounges-needed-to-capitalize-o/


'According to figures provided by Cannabis Benchmarks, a Connecticut-based provider of wholesale marijuana pricing data, wholesale cannabis prices in Oregon and Washington state are down more than 50% relative to the same week in October 2017, with double-digit declines also observed in California, Colorado and Nevada.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/chart-declines-in-wholesale-prices-hammer-major-recreational-cannabis-markets/


'“April marks a significant milestone for the state, as tax revenues from marijuana hit—and exceeded—the amount that was projected for the entire fiscal year, with two months of collections still to go,” said Bill Anderson, the Executive Director of Nevada’s Department of Taxation, in a prepared statement.'
https://fox13now.com/2018/06/28/nevada-reports--whopping-110-of-projected-sales-from-marijuana/


'With three months still in the fiscal year, Nevada has already brought in about 97 percent of the combined marijuana tax revenue that was projected for the entire fiscal year. The state’s projection for total amount of marijuana tax revenue this year was $50.32 million.'
https://www.cannabisbusinessexecutive.com/2018/05/nevada-exceeds-pot-tax-revenue-expectations-rec-sales-topped-304-million/


'Nevada issues 61 additional provisional recreational marijuana retail permits, Connecticut doubles the number of medical cannabis dispensary licenses in the state, and some publicly traded MJ firms release third-quarter results.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/nevada-cannabis-licensing-connecticut-dispensaries-q3-marijuana-earnings/


'“One of the things that we have been really good at is acquiring licenses when they’re actually allocated by the government, which means that we don’t have to go out and buy them later for tens of millions of dollars when we can acquire them for a few hundred thousand dollars,” White said after announcing the deal on Monday.

“What we’ve seen in Verano is they also have the ability to do that very same thing,” he said. “What very few people know is they won more licenses than anyone in the state of Nevada in the recent round of license awards there.”'
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/16/harvest-ceo-850-million-verano-deal-is-just-the-beginning-for-us-pot.html


'With $989.7 million in total contributions to the economy—including auxiliary businesses that supply, outfit, and shelter cannabis companies—the industry also brought 8,300 full-time equivalent jobs to the state, the Nevada Dispensary Association said. Of that sum, the industry generated $443.3 million in direct, indirect, and induced labor income.'
https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/nevada-sells-more-than-500-million-in-cannabis-in-first-year


'The popular votes that legalized recreational marijuana in Nevada, Oregon and Washington showed a similar partisan divide to Idaho — most of the Democratic-leaning counties in those states backed legalization, most of the Republican-leaning ones opposed it.'
https://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/marijuana-the-latest-battlefield-between-left-and-right-in-idaho/article_b60f162f-0682-5c17-8f0b-3980ac3328dc.html


'Photos of 17 people — including a white-haired grandmother, a schoolteacher, a business executive, a former pro football player and a nurse — are being splashed across billboards, buses and the web by the company that has dispensaries in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York. Each photo has the word “stoner” crossed out and in its place a description of their job'
https://apnews.com/16e1686cb4a942499df315afbd803129/Legal-marijuana-industry-tries-to-shake-'stoner'-stereotypes


'"Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood" (1978) also known as "Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision" is a short documentary produced by BBC Omnibus (basically, arty British tv series). It pictures Hunter S. Thompson in the late 70's, when he was eventually getting bigger than life. It was directed by Nigel Finch. This smoothly directed road trip movie pairs Thompson with his inseparable fellow, famous illustrator, Ralph Steadman. The party travels to Hollywood via Death Valley and Barstow from Las Vegas being closely pictured by BBC crew and certainly interviewed at the spot.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12mBKVJf-Rw


'Three more states could prove likely candidates to legalize recreational cannabis in 2019. Uncle Sam may be poised to reform the nation’s marijuana laws. And annual medical marijuana sales in the United States are projected to drop for the first time in 2018 – but the decline is expected to prove short-lived.

Those were just three of the predictions that came to light Wednesday on the first day of the annual MJBizCon in Las Vegas – with some marijuana reform at the federal level representing a potentially groundbreaking development for the cannabis industry.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/cannabis-business-predictions-take-center-stage-at-mjbizcon-2018/


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