Inaugural Medical Marijuana Dispensary Opens in Nevada

Medi-weed legalized back in 2000 but not implemented until now

On Friday, July 31, a dispensary near Reno, NV was the first of among sixty-six licensees in the state to actually sell medical Cannabis to patients. At just after 10 a.m., around eighty customers were welcomed inside Silver State Relief to make legal pot purchases, as opposed to personally growing or otherwise sourcing their medicine, after waiting fifteen years for implementation to kick in.

Medical marijuana laws were approved by sixty-five percent of voters back in 2000, but murky language prevented a realistic implementation model from taking hold. Patients were permitted to either grow up to twelve plants themselves, difficult for many extremely ill patients, or buy pot on the black market, which is illicit and can be dangerous in certain areas. Thus, those in need were permitted to use the plant but with no access to safe, or at least safer, retail weed that could be run through some form of quality control.

The unregulated approach technically changed in June of 2013, when Republican Governor Brian Sandoval signed Senate Bill 374 into law. SB 374 established a framework upon which medi-weed dispensaries state-wide would operate, while also allowing patients to cultivate their own medicine until 2016. The bill also dictated that a two-percent excise tax would be levied upon both wholesale and retail sales of medical marijuana.

Legalizing recreational Cannabis is the target for a November 2016 initiative that was added to the ballot at the end of last year. The Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Act was backed by the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), who are based in Washington, D.C., in addition to efforts made by Nevada's Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. Legalization of recreational pot in Nevada is modeled upon the approach and industry in Colorado, where adults aged twenty-one and over may possess and purchase up to an ounce of weed.

Nevada is one of over twenty states with legal medical Cannabis, in addition to Washington, D.C. and Guam.