The SAFER Banking Act, a new version of the SAFE Banking Act that passed the House seven times since 2019 but was never passed by the Senate, was again introduced in the Senate this year. The bill would allow legally operating cannabis businesses the same access to financial institutions that other legal businesses receive, from accounts to lines of credit to loans.

A committee was mandated to study federal and state laws and regulations concerning the removal of cannabis from Schedule I through SB277, which was passed in the 2023 legislative session. They are required to have a report ready for the Legislature by March 2024 that includes their research findings and policy recommendations.

During a Tuesday meeting, CCB Executive Director Tyler Klimas announced that provisional licensees have until the end of September to request another 90-day extension, stating that more than 19 entities have not submitted for an extension. 

According to Layke Martin, the executive director of the Nevada Cannabis Association, cannabis businesses could see up to an 80 percent drop in their tax burden if the drug is rescheduled because the tax code would allow them to write off more expenses. She said this could lead to lower prices for cannabis.

“The idea would be to … create more of a health and wellness atmosphere with the farm-to-table restaurant, [and] people can feel comfortable and educate themselves on the use of cannabis,” Steven Cantwell told the CCB board.

County commissioners said they plan to have officials bring the recommendations back next session, which included a $1 million appropriation from the state general fund to the Department of Public Safety to establish an Advisory Task Force on Automatic Record Sealing.

Washoe County commissioners on Tuesday voted against moving forward with allowing cannabis consumption lounges to open in unincorporated parts of the county.

The 1,200-square-foot venue is 90 percent complete, could run 24 hours a day, holds 100 people inside and has additional space on its 1,000-square-foot front patio. Operators said they hope the venue is the first lounge that opens in the state.

The Cannabis Compliance Board (CCB) approved Thrive Cannabis Marketplace, a multilocation, large-scale cannabis operator, for a conditional consumption lounge license for its Sammy Davis Jr. Drive location near Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club in Clark County. The nearby Planet 13 Dispensary was also approved for licensing at the public meeting, as was Washoe County’s The Venue at Sol Cannabis. 

With an amendment, SB195 also seeks to require the CCB to provide estimates for the costs of investigations prior to the commencement of any investigation, remove the CCB’s authority to deny a license, transfer of interest, application, renewal or any regulatory process available to licensees for failure to pay fees, and introduce an appellate process for licensees.

Nevada lawmakers authorized medical marijuana dispensaries in 2013 through a deal that also put strict limitations on home growing, which patients such as Jordon Herring say contributes to a legal cannabis framework with major shortcomings, including high prices, contaminated products and a lack of medicinal resources.

“Those folks who are licensed right now, they have frustrations with their regulator, they have frustrations with the illicit market … so that was our goal,” said Brett Scolari, who presented the bill.

Anderson said the bill would authorize the CCB to conduct investigations on unregulated operators similar to the investigations it already conducts of licensed operators, such as compiling evidence and presenting it to the attorney general’s office, which can assign civil penalties.

Klimas said that with inflation and consumers having fewer discretionary dollars following the COVID-19 pandemic, the commercial cannabis industry has seen a 4 percent decrease in profits last year, and the unregulated market is its biggest competitor.

Layke Martin, executive director of the Nevada Cannabis Association, presented SB195 to the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee on Wednesday, a bill that also would place a 30-day limit on the number of days that the Cannabis Compliance Board (CCB) has to approve a plan of correction or else it would be automatically deemed approved.

Las Vegas city officials made two changes before approving the consumption lounge ordinance during a meeting on Wednesday, with the city potentially issuing business licenses as soon as June.

“It is absolutely unreasonable to make somebody walk more than three football fields to the next bar, restaurant, shops or casinos,” Tina Ulman, president and founder of the Chamber of Cannabis, said at Wednesday’s Las Vegas City Council meeting. “Why would we ever want them to do that for consumption venues?”

Through a random selection process using software, the Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board awarded 20 entities with "prospective" independent consumption lounge licenses, including 10 "social equity" applicants, out of a pool of 80 submitters.

For the last seven years, GLP has used natural farming techniques to keep its harvests pesticide-and-radiation-free and its farm sustainable with limited water use and waste. But a routine inspection by state regulators led to a year of farming corrections.

Nevadans have been able to purchase medical marijuana from dispensaries since 2000, but attorneys in the case said the pharmacy board “forcibly” continued listing cannabis in a manner similar to illicit substances, such as heroin and methamphetamine.