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Nevada cannabis sales break $1 billion in 2021

by The Real Dirt | Oct 15, 2021 | Blog, Business, Cannabis Business, Cannabis News, Industry News, Legalization

Nevada cannabis sales broke a record in 2021

Nevada retailers sold more than $1 billion in medical and recreational marijuana over a one-year period, state officials announced on Wednesday.

The Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board (CCB) and the Nevada Department of Taxation released the data, which shows $1,003,467,655 in taxable cannabis purchases in Fiscal Year 2021, which ran from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021.

By contrast, total marijuana sales for the prior 2020 fiscal year amounted to $685 million.

The bulk of the marijuana purchases ($791,100,017) came from Clark County, where Las Vegas is located. Another $135,326,790 of cannabis was sold in Washoe County, with Reno being the major city in that jurisdiction. The $77,040,859 remainder came from other counties.

Ten percent of tax revenue from recreational cannabis sales will support pubic education funding, as prescribed under a bill that Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) previously signed.

“This is what Nevadans expected since the legalization of recreational marijuana,” the governor said in a press release about the new sales data. “Education remains one of my top priorities, and I’m proud to see promised tax revenue from cannabis sales directly funding our students and classrooms.”

Sisolak also signed a bill in June to legalize marijuana consumption lounges in the state.

The new social use license types statewide and giving consumers this option—especially in the tourist-centric state—could further boost marijuana and other tax revenues.

The governor has also committed to promoting equity and justice in the state’s marijuana law. Last year, for example, he pardoned more than 15,000 people who were convicted for low-level cannabis possession.

That action was made possible under a resolution the governor introduced that was unanimously approved by the state’s Board of Pardons Commissioners.

Read Full Story on Marijuana Moment

Nevada Governor Signs Multiple Marijuana Reform Bills

by The Real Dirt | Jun 14, 2021 | 420 News, Blog, Cannabis Law, Cannabis Law and Compliance, Cannabis News, Industry News, Legalization

nevada governor passed more cannabis reform bills last week

Carson City, NV: Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak has signed multiple marijuana reform bills into law.

On Monday, the Governor signed Assembly Bill 341. The new law, which takes effect on October 1, 2021, provides regulations for the establishment of on-site “cannabis consumption lounges” for those ages 21 and older. Regulators must still determine the specific types of cannabis products that are “appropriate for consumption” in the facilities.

Alaska and Colorado have previously enacted legislation explicitly permitting social consumption sites for cannabis, and New York’s nascent adult-use law also regulates on-site facilities. Similar legislation is currently pending in California.

Late last week, the Governor signed Assembly Bill 400 into law. It amends the state’s traffic safety statutes so that the operation of a motor vehicle with trace amounts of either THC or its metabolite is no longer a per se violation of law. The new law takes effect on October 1, 2021.

Under the state’s existing traffic safety laws, it is illegal to operate a motor vehicle with low levels of either THC or the 11-hydroxy-THC metabolites in one’s blood or urine, even absent any further evidence of psychomotor impairment. The revised measure eliminates the application of those limits in certain circumstances.

NORML has consistently opposed the imposition of THC per se limits, opining that such thresholds are not evidence-based and that they may lead to the criminal prosecution of people who consumed cannabis several days previously but are no longer under its influence.

Also on Friday, the Governor signed Assembly Bill 158, which revises first-time penalties imposed upon minors who possess small quantities of cannabis. It reduces existing penalties — which include up to six-months in jail and a $1,000 fine — to community service. The measure also requires courts to automatically seal records for these offenses if the offender completes the term of their sentence. The new law takes effect on July 1, 2021.

Original Story from Yes Weekly

Las Vegas Braces for Cannabis Consumption Lounges

by The Real Dirt | May 3, 2021 | 420 Culture & Travel, 420 News, Blog, Business, Cannabis Law, Cannabis Law and Compliance, Culture

Cannabis lounges, where patrons can smoke a joint, rip a bong, vaporize a dab or do just about anything else you can think of with the plant, appeared to be a certainty as part of a Las Vegas ordinance back in 2017—and then again in 2019. They’ve been talked about for over four years in the entertainment capital of America.

But this time around, after years of setbacks and political meddling from the rival gaming industry, a bill at the Nevada State Legislature is on track to settle the score once and for all.

Assembly Bill 341 would pave the way for an unlimited number of lounges to open across the state, in counties where local governments allow cannabis businesses to operate. That includes in Sin City, where over 40 million tourists visited each year before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This would really open the floodgates for something marijuana users have wanted for a long time,” said Assemblyman Steve Yeager, a Democrat from Las Vegas who sponsored the bill. “And there’s a social equity part to it where we’re not restricting this just to licensed dispensary owners.”

Yeager, in his third term at the state’s biennial legislature, has felt the frustration himself. Long considered the heir apparent to former State Sen. Tick Segerblom, who was known as Nevada’s “Godfather of Marijuana,” Yeager watched as the fledgling industry offered all of its spoils to a tiny group of anointed business owners, most of whom were lawyers, doctors, casino operators, lobbyists and former public officials.

Less than 100 groups control almost all of the industry, as the state capped dispensary licenses from the adult-use program’s inception in 2017. Many of the companies are also vertically integrated, meaning dispensary owners also hold the lion’s share of production and cultivation permits. Disproportionately left out have been women and racial minorities, the latter group of which was most harmed by cannabis prohibition.

The new bill runs so contrary to the state’s years of meticulously restricting licenses and hand-picking operators that many dispensary owners are wondering if opening a lounge is even worth the investment.

“You have to figure out if you can make any money with them,” said David Goldwater, owner of Inyo, a dispensary located just over a mile from the Las Vegas Strip. “There’s going to be a ton of new competition.”