High Times... Finally?!

This was a long time coming. We saw an Arizona field trip, an ACLU law suit, a last minute roll call SNAFU in Carson City, and one final round of bizarre drama from the Governor's office. But finally last month, SB 374 was signed into law and medical marijuana dispensaries finally became legal in Nevada.

So what's next? KSNV/News 3 Vegas looked into that yesterday.

Plenty of work remains. The Board of Health must set guidelines on regulating the dispensaries.

At the local level, agencies have to figure out what they will require for someone to get a business license and where to put these dispensaries.

Perhaps the biggest challenge will be making sure state and local agencies are in sync as people try to get approved. But state Sen. Tick Segerblom, who has become the face of this law, remains positive. 

“It is going to happen,” he said. “It's been 10 years since the voters approved it, but it's finally coming to fruition, so we're very excited.”

The final draft of regulations set by state board of health for public comment is set for Oct. 30. A legislative commission must approve those guidelines by Dec. 13.

There's still more work to do ahead. But finally,something's happening. After 13 years (the original medical marijuana initiative passed in 1998 and 2000), the will of the people is finally being implemented. And really, it couldn't come at a better time.

The news comes as several new studies are released suggesting that marijuana may aid in post-traumatic stress disorder,Crohn’s disease, diabetes, and as a possible weight control remedy. All of these studies, however, were either performed in other countries or based on surveys or self-reporting from marijuana users, because federal agencies have blocked access to a legal supply of marijuana even for academic studies.

Of course, federal law still presents a problem. In fact, the federal drug war is stifling critical medical research. And on top of that, specific federal actions to thwart medical marijuana run counter to 76% of US doctors who are comfortable prescribing it to patients in need.

So one can only hope the feds won't try to undermine SB 374 and/or Congress brings federal drug laws into the 21st Century soon. But in the mean time, we're at least seeing some progress in this state.