Marijuana has only been legal in Nevada for a week but the state is already facing a weed shortage. The sharp demand for legal marijuana is being driven by people out of state and even out of country as marijuana legalization as sent the Nevada skyrocketing to over 200% more than it was for the same time period last year.
Al Fasano of ReLeaf, a medical dispensary in Las Vegas, 18 Karat Reggae that his business saw seven or eight times more of business than business this weekend, with many customers being tourists from out of state.
“The line is out the door and the line just doesn’t stop,” Fasano said. “People are there when we open at 10 a.m. and they’re there when we close at midnight.”
The state made an estimated $1 million from taxes between Saturday and Tuesday, and dispensaries as much as $3 million. But there’s still not enough product to go around. Part of the problem, besides excited potheads, is the lack of distributors available.
In Nevada, there aren’t enough suppliers licensed to transport recreational marijuana to meet the demand of the dispensaries. The Nevada Tax Commission is voting on an emergency regulation Thursday that would allow the Department of Taxation to consider a larger pool of applicants for distribution licenses.
And if they just can’t wait for the kinks in the legalization process to get ironed out, the people of Nevada could take a trip to Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska — the four other states that have legalized the substance.
But we’re hoping Nevada figures out its pot problem soon and its residents won’t have to worry about sharing their stash.
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