I participated last week in a 4/20 press tour of some Southern Nevada pot dispensaries sponsored by the Las Vegas Medical Marijuana Association. It was neither a long strange trip nor a walk on the wild side.

There were no unmarked apartments, no passwords, no furtive moves or paranoid glances. No negotiating with tattooed gnarlies or urban coyotes. In the era of marijuana legalization, the smoke of the clandestine has been lifted and replaced by smiling people eager to inform a visitor about the product. And while they’re at it, they’re happy to point out the racks of T-shirts and other ephemera -- some of which used to get people in trouble for possessing “paraphernalia” -- available for consumers and citizens who just want to dress like them.

And that was the point of the exercise. Association President John Laub played tour guide. Sack lunches were provided, for crying out loud.

There were no free samples, I noticed, but then again this wasn’t Ethel M’s.

At the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe’s sparkling NuWu Cannabis Marketplace, located not far from its better known smoke shop on the seedy end of Main Street, an outdoor concert venue was being set up against a blustering spring wind. Inside, the party was getting started with customers lining up to place their orders and others lingering near the T-shirt racks.

Anyone looking for the slightest sign of stigmatization had come to the wrong place. NuWu has a drive-through window, courteous and informed staff and lots of security. It’s the biggest thing to happen to the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe in modern memory. Tribal officials proudly tout the dispensary as the largest of its kind.

The fact the diminutive tribe’s history lacks a discernible link to marijuana use either recreationally or ceremonially is beside the point. Tribal Chairman Benny Tso noted its other investments, but said he believes the financial success of the marketplace -- where up to 300 customers per day are using the drive-through service -- could substantially improve the quality of life not only of tribal members but of the area’s residents as well.

A short drive away at Acres Cannabis, I figure I’d found my connection when managing partner John Mueller offered to escort us through a secret-seeming passageway to the Underground, a farmers market of marijuana products. Some of the pot was offered out of car trunks as in days of old. It was, of course, all in good fun.

Acres is a seed-to-sale conglomerate with a grow farm in Amargosa Valley that has become the largest employer in the area. Its Underground features walls with themed posters from pot’s notorious history. It’s as if a wing of the Mob Museum were devoted to marijuana, and it is as interesting as it is undeniably popular.

“It makes it more entertaining,” Mueller said above the din of music and controlled chaos. Patrons can find plenty of dispensaries that are set up like jewelry stores, but in the Underground “we just like a different vibe, a different experience,” he continues. “You feel more comfortable in a place like this, actually.”

Marijuana legalization in Nevada is more than a cultural and big business story. It’s also a political one that figures to play a substantive role in state and local campaigns. It is sure to impact both parties, but only one side is catching a buzz.

While Democrats are all lit up over medical and recreational use, the GOP has been left mostly staring at its shoes. Attorney General Jeff Sessions drew a hard line with a call in January 2017 to disregard Obama-era letters of agreement not to enforce federal pot prohibition in states that had chosen legalization. Progressive Democrats such as Rep. Dina Titus -- founding member of the so-called Cannabis Caucus -- responded by blistering Sessions and calling his action “a direct attack on the State of Nevada, sovereign tribal governments, and the rights of people in states, tribes, and territories all across the United States.” The decision, she said, undermined Nevada’s $622 million industry.

So it should have come as no surprise on 4/20 that “Queen of Cannabis” Titus had teamed up with Nevada legalization godfather state Sen. Richard “Tick” Segerblom for a voter registration effort at Reef, a local marijuana dispensary.

While other Democrats are slightly more subtle in their appreciation of pot politics, one tour around the valley of the bustling dispensaries is enough to know there’s the potential of a lot of votes to be gained.

The hypocrisy of federal prohibition aside, Nevada faces challenges on the horizon. As a thoughtful article by Brent Resh, Alysa Grimes and Beatriz Aguirre explains in the 4/20 edition of the Nevada Law Journal Forum, the issue of the currently illegal public consumption of pot in a place whose economy largely depends on millions of happy tourists must be addressed. “In the absence of such change,” the authors write, “many tourists will inevitably consume marijuana unlawfully and unsafely. Ignoring this ‘elephant in the room’ will not make it go away.”

Nothing but market saturation or unforeseen scandal figures to slow the growth of Nevada’s cannabis industry. Desperate attempts to turn back the clock in Trump’s Washington are hugely hypocritical in the face of the overall lack of action to battle the opioid abuse epidemic that kills thousands of addicted Americans annually.

Now that the cloud has lifted, it looks like Nevada’s added a whole new holiday.

John L. Smith is a longtime Las Vegas journalist and author. Contact him at [email protected]. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith.