A Nevada lawmaker is working on a plan to make retail marijuana available to adults 21 and over long before the recreational cannabis industry launches in the summer of 2018.
Although marijuana is about to enter into legal status all across the Silver State at the first of the year, people are still going to be forced to lean on the black market for smoke because the cannabis trade is not expected to be ready for at least another year.
It is for this reason that State Senator Tick Segerblom would like to see the state pass legislation that would allow recreational reefer to be sold temporarily through the medical sector – a concept that was successfully implemented last year in the state of Oregon.
"They allowed the existing medical dispensaries to sell recreational marijuana and as far as we could tell, there's no reason we couldn't do that in Nevada," he said.
A report from Las Vegas Now indicates the Senator’s staff is currently burning the midnight oil in an effort to draft a piece of legislation intended to make this idea a reality.
Although details of the plan are vague, it would likely give some of the state’s medical marijuana dispensaries the ability to sell marijuana for recreational purposes — taxed at a rate of up to 20 percent.
The goal of the measure is to prevent the back market from raking in profits that belong to the state.
If Nevada does not properly facilitate recreational marijuana sales before 2018, Segerblom believes the state stands to lose “$100 million in just taxes” that he expects will come, in part, from the tourist trade.
The bill, which will likely resemble the one passed in Oregon, is expected to be submitted in the State Legislature just in time for the upcoming session schedule to begin at the beginning of the year.
Yet it is still too early to tell whether the bill will gain enough support to secure passage.
