To the editor: Jobs and taxable income are the two things Nevada needs most. The medical marijuana business can generate both tax revenue and new job opportunities for Nevadans. In Colorado, for instance, medical cannabis generated more than $9 million on a 2.9 percent sales tax last year alone. This doesn't include the property taxes that cultivators, labs and dispensaries pay. Let's say that the pharmaceutical industry has developed a 100 percent natural product that alleviated the suffering of thousands of Nevadans diagnosed with cancer, HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, migraines, epilepsy and other debilitating diseases. They now want to locate their manufacturing and distribution facilities throughout local jurisdictions in Nevada. Now realize that the only thing preventing patients' access to this palliative product is the reluctance of some local governments to issue zoning and business license regulations to these pharmaceutical companies willing to invest millions of dollars in these jurisdictions. This is the current state of limbo of the medical cannabis industry in Nevada. [continues 280 words]
You may have seen them in front of stores or walking door to door collecting signatures. Perhaps you dismissed them as dope heads, or maybe hippies left over from the '60s looking for a nostalgic taste of the days of free just-about-everything. But members of the Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care have done what they set out to do. They have collected enough signatures to put a proposal before the state Legislature that would legalize the use of marijuana in Michigan for medical purposes. [continues 336 words]