What will happen to medical marijuana in Nevada?
By Chris Kudialis, Las Vegas Sun
The Denver dispensary is called Medicine Man and was founded on serving medical marijuana patients. Yet, since Colorado legalized recreational marijuana sales three years ago, few of the store’s patrons have been making medicinal purchases.
“There’s less need for medical inventory because we have less medical customers,” said Andy Williams, owner and CEO of Medicine Man, one of Colorado’s largest legal marijuana stores selling both recreational and medical marijuana. “People don’t want to go through the hurdles to get their cards anymore.”
A similar scenario will likely play out for Nevada’s pot dispensaries when recreational marijuana sales begin July 1. The first four states to legalize recreational marijuana sales — Oregon, Alaska, Washington and Colorado — have all seen a dip in the number of active medical card-holding patients.
For nearly two years since Nevada’s first dispensary opened in July 2015, medical marijuana has been the only source of legal weed. Nearly 28,000 Nevadans currently have medical cards, and thousands of other purchases come from out-of-state buyers through the state’s reciprocity program, which honors medical cards from other weed legal states.
