Friday Night Off to a Good Start in Nevada as Recreational Pot Law Passes

The state now permits adults over 21 to buy and possess up to one ounce of cannabis after the new law was approved last November.

An estimated two-thirds of all purchases will come from tourists visiting the state.

Friday Night highlighted reports suggesting  many of the 44 licensed retail outlets in Nevada had “customers lined up around the corner,”  – 39 of them right in the centre of Las Vegas, where its subsidiary, the producer Alternative Medicine Association (AMA) is based.

Mark Zobrist, director at AMA, said: “We expected a good turnout to kickoff the July 1 adult-use celebration, but lines were still exceeding 100 people six hours later at some locations.

“We were making deliveries to stock retail stores until 11 pm Friday night. Our grower commented that, at this rate, the state could be out of cannabis by the end of the month.”

Nevada joins Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington with a new recreational law and regulation for this adult-use cannabis – 29 states already have  a medicinal program, with more states expected to join soon.

Colorado alone represented over $1bn in sales in 2016, which generated over $200mln in tax revenue for the state.

State Senator Tick Segerblom, considered to be the “godfather of the marijuana movement” in Nevada, considers the new legal cannabis market to be the most heavily regulated industry in the whole state, expected to generate well over $60mln in tax revenue over the next two years.