Nevada official Joe Pollock told the Associated Press that once Nevada’s recreational market is open for business, there will be very little incentive for adult patients to continue using the medical marijuana program.
When it comes time for Nevada to launch its recreational cannabis trade, there is a distinct possibility the sin sector will be handled in exactly the same manner as the market currently servicing those participating in the state’s medical marijuana program. The only distinguishable difference between the two could be in the way the product is taxed, according to a report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
This is because Joe Pollock, the official who oversees the state’s medicinal cannabis project, is not at all convinced that growing and selling weed to people looking to catch a buzz should be treated any differently than the industry distributing cannabis to people with health issues. This is the spiel Pollock fed the Senate Committee on Finance earlier this week, suggesting the state simplify the regulatory process of the recreational side by copycatting its medical marijuana rules and simply increasing the tax rate.
“I think there’s a lot of advantages of having recreational and medical marijuana treated the same, right up until the point of sale,” Pollock said.
Although combining the two sectors may not sound like much of controversial issue, there are some hardcore medical marijuana purists out there who will likely spit glass the moment a policy emerges that suggests their “medicine” is the same stuff the average stoner is using just to get high.
In other fully legal states, like Colorado, recreational and medical marijuana sales remain completely separate in the way they are handled under the language of the law. Not that it is absolutely necessary. But there is an illusion, or at least an awkward perspective, that the cannabis being grown across the state for medical purposes is more effective in the treatment of health conditions than what is being sold in retail marijuana shops. But the truth is, a strain is going to have the same power regardless of its designated application.
Lawmakers in Oregon understand this concept, which is the reason the state became the first in the nation to allow the medical marijuana sector to temporarily sell weed to the recreational crowd. The goal of this move was to ensure those people without a medical marijuana card would not be forced to into the black market for weed.
Nevada has stolen a chapter out of Oregon’s handbook, setting up similar program that is well on its way to making recreational weed available through the medical sector at some point this summer. Permanent regulations are supposed to be in place by the end of the year.
Pollock recently told the Associated Press that once Nevada’s recreational market is open for business, there will be very little incentive for adult patients to continue using the medical marijuana program.
