Ordinarily, with a mostly moral issue like marijuana, one might expect Nevada to fall on the lax side. After all, this is the state that blazed the trail for wide-open casino gambling, quickie divorces, and instant marriages, and hasn’t, in 150 years, gotten around to imposing a statewide ban on prostitution.
However, when it comes to drug use, all bets are off.
The fact is, Nevada has some of the harshest drug laws in the U.S. and enforces them with a passion, especially when minors are involved. This has been true throughout state history, but particularly since casino gambling has been legal. It doesn’t take too much imagination to figure out why: It has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with money.
Simply put, money spent on drugs (or prostitution, which is illegal in Las Vegas and Reno) is money that can’t be spent on gambling. And because historically, casino owners and bosses have been instrumental in lobbying for state laws, anything that might compete head on with gambling has been viewed as a threat, with the prohibitions to prove it.
The old-time Mafiosi, though they might have tolerated and profited from illegal drugs elsewhere in the country, hated it in Vegas and that included everything from hard white heroin to soft green marijuana. They loved alcohol, which went hand in hand with craps and roulette and slots (and many earned their seed capital in bootlegging), but up until recently, Nevada made little distinction between narcotics and marijuana. Throughout the 20th century, possession of any marijuana at all in Nevada was a felony, punishable by a prison term of at least a year and a fine of up to $5,000.
Due to the migration to Las Vegas, Reno, and Carson City of urban liberals, the tide started to turn in the late 1990s. First, with 65% of Nevada voters approving Question 9 in November 2000, the state constitution was amended to recognize the medical use of marijuana. Then, in 2001, state legislators passed a law making possession of less than an ounce of pot a misdemeanor.
Even so, Nevada’s relationship to marijuana has remained rocky at best. Though medical marijuana was approved in 2000, it took state lawmakers 13+ years to green light the operation of 66 dispensaries statewide, with 40 in Clark County (the law went into effect on April 1).
Meanwhile, the city of Las Vegas and Clark County have struggled and struggled to finalize their own regulations. City and county attorneys have claimed, with a straight face, that because of the discrepancies between state and federal law, the medical-marijuana-dispensary issue is "uncharted territory"—despite 21 states and the District of Columbia managing to reconcile the tensions, to say nothing of Colorado and Washington, where pot is completely legal. For what, one wonders, is a specious argument like that supposed to serve as a smokescreen (so to speak)?
Finally, legalized marijuana has been rejected three times in Nevada—twice by voters: In a 2002 referendum, 61% were opposed; in 2006, it dropped to 56%. The Nevada Legislature rejected it in 2013.
But a group called Campaign to Regulate Marijuana filed a new initiative just last week to legalize recreational use (up to one ounce). Backers will need to collect about 102,000 signatures to send it to the 2015 legislature. If lawmakers ignore or reject it, it would go to voters the following year; advocates want it on the 2016 ballot to take advantage of the younger voters who flood presidential elections.
Given the long history of the issue, we’re not holding our breath for 2016. Even if it gets on the ballot and passes, who knows how long the legalization process might drag out?
But eventually, marijuana will be legalized in Nevada and—with the Netherlands as an example and certainly compared to the devastation wrought by legal alcohol and prescription drugs—when it is, before long, everyone will wonder what all the fuss was about.
