The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Wednesday filed a petition with the Nevada Secretary of State to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in the Silver State.

The group, made up of investors who are entering Nevada's burgeoning medical marijuana industry, needs to get 101,667 signatures by Nov. 11 to move the process forward.

The first stop would be the 2015 Nevada Legislature.

It will be an uphill battle for backers of the petition because approval would take a two-thirds vote in both houses because the petition has a tax component. All tax hikes in Nevada need a two-thirds vote in the Legislature to pass. It would also need the signature of Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval to become law.

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LAS VEGAS - Officials have received at least 178 applications from people seeking to start medical marijuana-related businesses in Clark County.

The Clark County Business License Department announced the totals 90 minutes before a 5 p.m. Tuesday submission deadline.

The number includes 60 applications related to cultivation, 77 in the dispensary category, one in the laboratory category and 40 in production.

Clark County became the first municipality in southern Nevada to accept applications for marijuana-related businesses after approving regulations last month.

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Like much of Nevada, the casino industry is grappling with issues surrounding medical marijuana. So much so that gaming companies and regulators have had little to say publicly about doctor-prescribed pot.

Medical marijuana has been legal in Nevada since 2000, but it took state lawmakers 14 years to allow dispensaries to operate. Now, with a state law in place calling for up to 66 potential medical marijuana outlets throughout Nevada, the issue is finding its way into gaming headquarters.

No one has suggested Nevada casinos offer medical marijuana dispensaries as part of their retail amenities. Online gaming has fueled heated debate. Imagine the discussions around this issue?

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The Reno City Council is moving ahead with rules for medical marijuana establishments within the city limits.

The Reno Gazette-Journal reported that council members on Wednesday directed staff to draft ordinances and zoning rules for dispensaries, cultivation operations, testing labs and kitchens for edible products.

Washoe County approved requirements governing medical marijuana in unincorporated areas of the Truckee Meadows earlier this month.

Nevada voters approved marijuana for medicinal purposes in 2000, but patients had no legal way to obtain it except to grow it. That changed last year when the Legislature approved a law setting up a tax and distribution structure.

Local governments are now writing their own restrictions and requirements.

[end]

I'm writing about Jackie Valley's story in The Sunday: "Modern addiction: Our heroin epidemic."

The question that needs to be asked is: Why don't children and adolescents believe those who warn them about the dangers of drugs like heroin? The answer: Because when the drug war cheerleaders lie about or grossly exaggerate the dangers of marijuana, they lose all credibility.

When children find out that they have been lied to about marijuana, they make the logical assumption that they are also being lied to about the dangers of other drugs like heroin.

This has been a recipe for disaster.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.

[end]

How Your Medicine Cabinet Can Lead You To A Back Alley Drug

Not even the funeral of his beloved older brother, dead from a lethal injection of their shared drug of choice, could put the brakes on Dylan Engle's downward spiral.

Death didn't scare him. He made daily trips to the dope man's house, blowing his paychecks on a pricey habit that left him cloistered in his home's bathroom.

There, he would smoke heroin, sometimes up to six times a day. He lost weight, and acne sprouted on his face, but neither physical change deterred him. Nor did his first stint in rehab.

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Legal marijuana is spreading like a weed across the land, but it has yet to take root in the place where people might benefit most from inhaling: the U.S. Capitol.

The Maryland General Assembly finished work Monday on a marijuana decriminalization bill, joining two dozen other states and the District of Columbia in some form of legalization. Colorado and Washington allow recreational pot, while most others have legalized only medical marijuana, but the combined campaign has redefined the meaning of a grass-roots movement.

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City Following Las Vegas, Clark County

North Las Vegas plans to hop on the medical marijuana bandwagon after all.

A top city official said Tuesday that a town hall meeting to kick-start regulations on medical pot dispensaries and growing operations will be held April 22.

But Ryann Juden, chief of staff in the mayor's office, declined to comment on whether the city's marijuana turnaround was brought about by its worsening financial circumstances.

City Council members, who have not yet reversed an unofficial moratorium on pot, did not return requests for comment on how much the fees and taxes on such operations could bring to the cash-strapped city.

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Family Court Must Evolve on Medical Use

Nevadans legalized medical marijuana more than a decade ago. Last year, the Legislature finally caught up to the constitutional amendment by authorizing dispensaries to sell the drug to patients. Soon more sick Nevadans will be buying and using medical marijuana - fully within the law.

Government must catch up to this reality. Including Family Court.

As reported Sunday by the Review-Journal's Carri Geer Thevenot, Keith Patton is seeking broader parental rights over his 4-year-old son - preferably a custody arrangement that gives him unsupervised time equal to that enjoyed by the boy's mother, Erin Bersell. But Mr. Patton, 33, uses marijuana regularly to treat migraines and muscle spasms caused by a skull fracture he suffered in 2003. Mr. Patton claims that his medical marijuana use has led Family Court Judge Gayle Nathan to gradually strip him of his parental rights. "It's never been proven that I am unfit," Mr. Patton told Ms. Geer Thevenot.

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Re "Failed experiment" (Feature story, March 13):

An informative read on the history of medical dope in Nevada. Being a conservative, with libertarian leanings, I have mixed feelings on medical marijuana.

I find it very ironic that the far left want to outlaw E cigarettes as "health hazards" while standing in line to vote in legal whacky weed. Of course the tax money will "go to the schools," which is always a sales pitch for more taxes. We will have the newest schools, with kids that are so stoned, they can't recall their test material.

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Statewide regulations covering medical marijuana dispensaries took effect on April 1, clearing the way for local governments to provide for dispensaries within their jurisdictions.

City staffers in Sparks are preparing language for the Sparks City Council to use in dealing with medical marijuana dispensaries in the Rail City. The step doesn't commit the council to approving dispensaries, however.

In Nye County, the county commission approved zoning for dispensaries within Pahrump, but then ended up banning them by a 4 to 1 vote. Meanwhile, a planned "High Desert Cup Music and Cannabis Expo," portrayed by its organizers as championing medical marijuana, was canceled when they could not raise all the needed funding. It would have taken place in Petrack Park in Pahrump.

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The Las Vegas business licensing department, led by manager Karen Duddlesten, came under fire for the second time in as many weeks on Tuesday for drafting what many called "hypocritical" regulations in what will be a proposed medical marijuana ordinance in May.

More than 500 people, from patients to future dispensary owners, filled the council chambers in what was the last in a pair of public hearings on the 38-page draft proposal. The opinions will be considered by staff before the blueprint is sent to the City Council for a vote that could bring 10 medical marijuana dispensaries to town.

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Commission Adopts Regulations to Govern Marijuana Facilities

CARSON CITY - State Sen. Tick Segerblom said his goal is to have one medical marijuana dispensary operating in Nevada by year's end following Friday's adoption of regulations establishing state rules for the facilities to operate.

Now that state regulations mapping out how the program will be implemented have been approved by the Legislative Commission, it is time for local governments to "get off their butts" and adopt their own rules for the dispensaries to operate, Segerblom said.

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Clark County Rightly Recognizes Revenue Source

Medical marijuana still makes most local elected officials nervous, despite ample political cover from voters and lawmakers alike. It's been more than a decade since the electorate amended the state constitution to allow the sick to use doctor-prescribed marijuana, and it's been almost a year since the Legislature finally allowed the licensing of up to 40 dispensaries in Southern Nevada. Yet local governments have been reluctant to allow the businesses that are thriving - and providing significant tax revenues - in other states.

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City Official Says Current Wording Merely a Draft

Las Vegas' business licensing staff came under fire Wednesday from a couple of dozen people who said its proposed regulations on medical marijuana dispensaries bordered on "ridiculous," including not being able to wear sunglasses and hats while purchasing the medication.

Other proposed regulations that drew the ire of some of the 100 who attended a city meeting included not allowing dispensary owners to refer patients to physicians, requiring three security guards, and keeping cultivation facilities separate from the dispensaries, which would be more costly for medical pot businesses.

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WASHINGTON - Hoping to get marijuana legalized in Nevada, an investment company specializing in the fast-growing marijuana industry invited the ballot initiative's backers to pitch 150 financiers at a Las Vegas symposium.

Within 10 minutes, they raised $150,000.

Political contributors are not the only ones taking notice of the new realities of the marijuana business, said San Francisco based ArcView chief executive Troy Dayton, who estimated his group will spend about $500,000 this year to support legalization of pot. Officeholders and candidates now jostle for the stage at investor meetings, he said.

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Asset Seizures Defy Presumption of Innocence

The people of this country enjoy the presumption of innocence when accused of criminal wrongdoing. Their possessions, however, are not afforded similar protections - especially along Interstate 80 in Nevada's Humboldt County.

Asset forfeiture and seizure laws turn constitutional rights upside down. Although you are innocent until proved guilty, authorities can take and keep your stuff if they suspect the assets were obtained or used in the commission of a crime. And to get the stuff back, whether it's cash, a car or a house, defendants face the burden of proving their property was obtained lawfully, a standard that flies in the face of due process.

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To the editor:

How hypocritical is Nevada? People are against marijuana because this is such a moral state. We have constant gambling on every corner, and prostitutes soliciting sex in every motel and hotel, but that's OK. The reason some people are against marijuana is probably because they won't make money off it.

Joan Caldeira

Las Vegas

[end]

County Commissioners Prepare to Hold Hearing, Vote on Dispensaries

Thirteen years ago, Michael McAuliffe considered himself a pariah as he started pushing to legalize medical marijuana in Nevada.

Not so much anymore. If anything, McAuliffe's role in a town hall meeting that Clark County had about medical marijuana on Wednesday is another indication of how far the issue has come since the early days.

McAuliffe stood with county officials in front of an audience numbering about 200 and helped field questions alongside county officials.

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Protection Sought for Advising Clients

The Nevada Supreme Court is being asked to protect lawyers who advise clients on medical marijuana issues.

The Nevada Bar Association on Tuesday asked justices to adopt a rule to shield attorneys from the losing their law licenses if they counsel somebody who wants to open a medical marijuana dispensary in violation of federal law.

Alan Lefebvre, president of the State Bar, said the 50-page petition was filed in Carson City.

If the Supreme Court rules in the Bar's favor soon, then Nevada could become the first state in the country where lawyers can represent medical marijuana clients without suffering the legal repercussions, he said.

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