Las Vegas Recreational marijuana facts
Cannabis widely took up the name of marijuana in the English-speaking world during the 1930s after Harry Anslinger, the then-head of the now-defunct United States Federal Narcotics Bureau, began referring to cannabis by its Spanish name to alienate the psychoactive drug from Americans. A few years after Anslinger began his campaign against cannabis and virtually all psychoactive recreational drugs other than alcohol and tobacco – at the time, they were the drugs of choice among the majority of White people, whereas cannabis was mainly the drug of choice among Black and other Colored people – cannabis was effectively demonized throughout the nation.
Thanks to the advocacy of many millions of people, brave researchers that fought for funding for recreational marijuana and medical cannabis research, and a gradual change in public opinion, states across the United States began legalizing cannabis for medicinal use. More recently, a handful of states have legalized all use of cannabis by people of or above the age of majority.
Nevada is one of the most recent states to legalize cannabis for recreational use. The citizens of Nevada voted in favor of legalizing recreational-use cannabis in Nov. 2016. Two months later, in Jan. 2017, cannabis became legal for recreational use throughout Nevada. On June 1, 2017, dedicated, specialized retail stores began selling cannabis to adults throughout Nevada.
Let’s take a look at several facts related to recreational-use cannabis – or marijuana, whatever you want to call it – in Nevada’s largest city, Las Vegas.
1. Tourism in Las Vegas is to credit for high sales figures early on
Las Vegas rakes in roughly 40 to 50 million tourists each and every year. This figure is almost certain to be inflated over the next few years as a result of cannabis tourism, a phenomenon in which Americans who live in states that don’t oversee legalized, regulated cannabis markets are more likely to visit states with legal, retail cannabis dispensaries.
People have flocked to Las Vegas in part for its recently-legalized cannabis market. This trend, which played a major role in Nevada’s collective cannabis sales breaking all projections within just a few months’ time, is likely to continue.
2. One might think that Las Vegas would try to capitalize on cannabis tourism as best possible
One of the no-nonsense, common-sense ways to generate more tax dollars and greater economic activity is to legalize a popular psychoactive drug that was just recently illegal and accommodate its use by making that particular drug easy and hassle-free to use, purchase, and possess.
Even though Nevada made recreational-use cannabis legal two years ago, Las Vegas never made it legal for people to smoke cannabis anywhere outside of private residences. Most tourists who head for Las Vegas stay in hotels and other non-private residences, meaning they’d have to use cannabis illegally if they were to partake in the leafy green’s consumption while on vacation.
However, very few people in Las Vegas – as compared to the number of people ticketed in other cities located within states that had recently made cannabis legal – have been slapped with tickets. That’s good for business.
3. How much cannabis or cannabis derivatives can one possess in Nevada?
In order to purchase cannabis or its derivatives at dispensaries in Las Vegas, you must be at least 21. If you are of the age of consent, you can legally have one ounce of raw cannabis flower or one-eighth of an ounce of cannabinoid concentrates.
4. Medicinal cannabis users have dwindled
Across Nevada and its cities, including Las Vegas, medical cannabis users have largely shied away from the more-stringent regulations of the medicinal market and began purchasing cannabis and its derivatives from adult- or recreational-use – they’re the same thing – with the statistics indicating that 27,000 existed across the state before rec-use cannabis came around. Currently, there are only 18,000.
5. Medical-use dispensaries largely took losses
Medical-use dispensaries didn’t make much money, if any, because the state’s tax rate was roughly 70 percent. Further, because there weren’t too many consumers, dispensaries couldn’t grow to scale.
Dispensaries for recreational use grew the Las Vegas cannabis market to size, effectively pushing it into profit overnight.
6. Las Vegas sells more edibles than other cities in Nevada
Remember how cannabis can effectively only be consumed in private residences? There’s a popular way around this city-wide statute.
Consuming edible forms of cannabis and its derivatives make it so that law enforcement can’t detect them in virtually all scenarios. Further, even though they can, in fact, put off a skunky smell, their scent is many times much less potent than cannabis when consumed via smoking.
As such, Las Vegas sells a much greater proportion of edibles to other forms of cannabis, including raw flower and vape-ready extract cartridges, to other cities’ markets throughout the state