Nevada is winning big when it comes to recreational cannabis. Dispensaries had over $27 million in sales in July alone, which is double what Oregon and Colorado brought in their first months respectively and seven times what Washington procured.
According to the Nevada Department of Taxation, Nevada made $10.2 million during that first month of sales. Of that, $3.68 million came from taxes.
Gov. Brian Sandoval projected that with its now two-year-old medical cannabis industry and now recreational that the state stands to make over $100 million over the next two fiscal years from fees and taxes.
A new projection, though, by the Department of Taxation is that over $120 million will be generated.
Originally, Sandoval had proposed that the sales tax revenue go to schools, but later shifted some of the moneys to the state’s rainy day fund, which can be spent anywhere, but is normally reserved for emergencies.
The revenue from the 15 percent wholesale tax, taxed at the cultivation level for both recreational and medicinal marijuana, goes to state and local government for costs incurred. The remainder of the money goes into the School Distributive Account, which hands out money to schools based on the number of pupils.
Money rolling in is a good thing, but is it enough to make us forget the distribution kerfuffle Nevada first experienced? Not likely. The state is still deep in the courts with alcohol distributors, who have circumvented all state efforts to distribute new marijuana licenses.
From July, only a handful of new licenses have been distributed and only to cannabusinesses allowed to deliver the recreational and medical products to dispensaries to sell, resulting in many dispensaries struggling to stay stocked.
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Of those 250 licenses that have been issued, over 200 are in Clark County and the remaining are distributed throughout Carson City, Nye and Washoe Counties. Just around a dozen dispensaries conduct business in the Northern Nevada. The application fees recreational cannabis licenses is $5,000 and the license fees range from $10,000 to $30,000.
