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.

Despite a slight year-to-year dip, Nevada’s legal cannabis industry still reported nearly $1 billion in taxable sales over the last fiscal year, with a sizable chunk transferred to the state’s education budget.

Advocates asked that injunctive relief include the pharmacy board removing cannabis from the controlled substance list, removing the Schedule 1 designation and declaring that the board’s authority over the regulation of cannabis no longer exists in Nevada law.

Data from as far back as October 2021 — when sales prices were higher than now — are influencing the tax rate almost a year later, forcing cultivators to pay effective tax rates that can be double what the Legislature intended.

Cannabis advocates have pointed to a disconnect between marijuana now being legal and yet people are locked out of housing and job opportunities because of past cannabis-related convictions.

“Why are fees being billed for routine staff activities … when the regulator's already been fully funded because the Legislature made it a priority starting in 2017?” Martin said.

“With this petition, I'm hoping that we can work together to legitimize the cannabis activity that’s been a staple of live events ever since Woodstock,” said Anderson, president of Sala Consulting.

Visitors may soon have a new reason to stop in Tonopah — Stash Fine Cannabis Company plans to bring a “farmer’s market” experience to customers in the town of 2,100, providing cannabis products.

It would also represent the first major expansion of Nevada’s cannabis industry in years, and stands to expand a largely homogenous industry to include people adversely affected by the so-called war on drugs.

Even with the COVID pandemic waning, state tax officials told legislators this month that Nevadans have made what appear to be some permanent shifts in how they buy legal marijuana through pick-up and delivery modes.