Big marijuana not calling the shots in Nevada
By Ric Anderson, Las Vegas Sun
As Nevada voters prepare to vote this fall on whether to decriminalize recreational marijuana use, they’re going to hear a sinister-sounding warning that the push for legalization is being fueled by out-of-state money.
Former Assemblyman Pat Hickey, a prominent opponent of legalization, already sounded the alarm in a June 21 post on his blog, Soup to Nuts. He wrote that “the term oligarchy (‘a business interest controlled by a small group of people’) applies to the mostly out-of-state special interests who are responsible and largely paid for the pot legalization question on this November’s ballot.”
Sounds foreboding. But voters should be aware that we do know where a great deal of the funding is coming from — longtime Nevadans who have invested in the business.
In fact, when state lawmakers crafted the licensing requirements for operators of marijuana businesses, they took pains not to open the door wide to outside control of the industry.