And then there were five. At midnight last Saturday (July 1) Nevada became the fifth state in which recreational marijuana could be sold and bought legally. Nevada joins Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska as states with legal recreational sales. … Nevada State Senator Tick Segerblom, a longtime legalization advocate, may have snagged the first legally sold pot in the state when he led the charge into The Source dispensary and made the first purchase after the doors opened. At least 80 customers had been served by 1 a.m. … How brisk was business at Nevada dispensaries over the weekend? ReLeaf, a med dispensary turned rec dispensary served 1,000 a day on Saturday and Sunday. It’s usual business as a med dispensary had been 100 to 150 a day. “The line is out the door and the line just doesn’t stop,” said COO Al Fasano. “People are there when we open [at 10 a.m.] and they’re there when we close [at midnight].” … Tourists, 42 million of whom visit Las Vegas each year, are expected to make two out of three recreational pot purchases in Nevada. It will be interesting to see how that affects Colorado’s marijuana tourism. … It will also be interesting to see how multi-billionaire ($33 billion) casino magnate (The Sands) and pot prohibitionist Sheldon Adelson deals with it. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but it doesn’t have to stay at The Sands. Put that in your glass pipe and smoke it, big shot.
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Speaking of Sheldon Adelson, according to Wikipedia he was the largest single contributor to the Trump campaign. That may explain a couple of things. … Thing No. 1: Jeff Sessions. Thing No. 2: why Trump hasn’t publicly called for handing pot policy over to the states, as he promised, despite the fact that as a way to broaden his support it’s a no-brainer. …
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Speaking of glass pipes, the website BadassGlass.com recently put together a graphic showing the 12 states with the hightest per-capita numbers of pot users. And we’re number one! … 21.6 percent of Coloradans used pot in the past year, which works out to 909,000 Colorado stoners. Oregon was second with 19.9 percent and 646,000 users. Alaska with 19.5 percent and 114,000 users was fourth, and Washington, with 19.5 percent and 1,105,000 was fifth. … Third place went to Vermont, 19.8 percent and 108,000 users, where the legislature passed a recreational pot legalization bill earlier this year, only to have it vetoed by Governor Phil Scott, who had concerns about “the children.” … Supporters did a quick re-write that satisfied the governor, but couldn’t get it considered during a special session of the legislature. They say they have the votes to pass it next January. …
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Nevada set a record — less than eight months — between the time its voters legalized weed (November 8) and the time its voters could buy weed (July 1). … The other three states that legalized pot last November are still screwing around with regulation writing. In Massachusetts, the Legislature has spent six months trying to mess with the initiative the voters passed; currently a joint committee, so to speak, is trying to reconcile the mess passed by the state House and the mess passed by the state Senate. … A major point of contention is that the state House wants to raise the tax on pot from the 12 percent rate in the voter-passed bill to 28 percent. The state Senate appears to have recalled that the revolution we celebrated a couple of days ago, which was started a few miles up-river from Bean Town, had something to do with taxes. Northing wrong with those guys’ long term memories. …
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“Jobs, jobs, jobs” has been a marijuana legalization talking point for years, and now we’re finding out just how many the industry has already generated: 165,000-230,000 full and part time workers, according to the Marijuana Business Factbook 2017, including workers in retail outlets, wholesale grows, infused products/concentrates providers, and testing labs, etc. … According to Marijuana Business Daily, there are more marijuana workers (165,000-230,000) than dental hygienists (201,000,) and chances are they won’t give you a lecture about the stains on your teeth either. … Ganja-related employment is growing so fast that it is expected to surpass employment in the telemarketing industry (238,000) next year. … You know, it would be a national blessing if some of the poor wretches condemned to dialing for dollars and endlessly repeating scripted lies could find honest work in grows and dispensaries. …
