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When America steps into the voting booth in November, Nevada will be among five states deciding whether to legalize recreational marijuana use and possession. While 25 states, including Nevada, already allow its medicinal use, only Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Washington, D.C., grant adults the right to purchase the drug for other reasons.
It’s a frontier full of questions about effects on public health, the economy and the strained justice system. But voters in Nevada will be asked for one yes-or-no answer on the 13-page ballot proposal known as Question 2.
“Too many people are voting on a concept instead of what this ballot really says,” said Jim Hartman, a Carson City attorney who helped form the nonprofit coalition Nevadans for Responsible Drug Policy and the recently launched No on 2 Campaign. “We’re a grass-roots effort to educate people on the dangers of doing that.”
Led by former Assemblyman Pat Hickey, the anti-legalization groups argue that wholesale legalization would create state government bureaucracy and special interest monopolies while supporting mostly out-of-state corporate financial interests.
Hartman and Hickey have written news editorials to that effect, and crisscrossed the state to speak at political events and in community forums about what they say is a damaging law. Hartman contends that the few states that have legalized recreational marijuana have done so because of overwhelming corporate influence, not support from government leaders. He pointed to Colorado, where “Big Marijuana” groups with corporate backing outspent opponents 5-to-1 to influence the 2012 vote to legalize the drug.
The losing side included some high-profile media outlets and politicians, including The Denver Post and Gov. John Hickenlooper.
“Politicians in Colorado knew it wasn’t in the state’s best interest at the time, but they were overpowered,” Hartman said. “That same thing is happening here in Nevada.”
Opponents of Question 2, which would allow anyone 21 or older to buy up to an ounce of marijuana or 1/8 ounce of marijuana concentrates (cannabis oil, wax and shatter are examples), include Gov. Brian Sandoval, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and U.S. Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto, among dozens of other state and local legislators from both major parties.
But in Colorado, since the recreational program began in 2013, Gov. Hickenlooper has changed his tune. Quoted in a May article in the Los Angeles Times, he said the law is “beginning to look like it might work.” Ditto for Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, who also opposed the law in 2012 but last year told Inc. Magazine he was “very proud” of Colorado’s marijuana industry, though he added it was “too early to understand what the impacts of legalizing marijuana are in our community.”
While the state is still examining the economic and societal impacts of recreational marijuana, a January report from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federally funded law enforcement program, said Colorado now has the highest percentage of marijuana users in the United States. The report found that the number of teenage users jumped from about 10.5 percent, fourth in the country in 2011 and 2012, to over 12.5 percent in 2013 and 2014. Likewise, the number of users 18 to 25 years old increased from 26.8 percent to 31.2 percent, and older adult users soared from 7.6 percent to 12.5 percent. The increases were all over 50 percent greater than those of national averages.
“When you look at the three age groups, it’s obvious that recreational happening in Colorado caused all three categories to jump,” said Rocky Mountain HIDTA Director Tom Gorman.
Fifty-three percent of Nevadans support legalization, according to a Sept. 21 KNTV-TVC/Rasmussen Report poll. Support is driven by the stance that cannabis should be more accessible for self-medication, and by the promise of economic growth.
“When it becomes recreational, people will have that first option to take medical cannabis,” said industry employee RachelNell Rivera of the ReLeaf dispensary at a news conference last week, staged by the pro-Question 2 Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. “There are a ton of ways to use this stuff.”
A July report from Las Vegas-based RCG Economics estimated that recreational marijuana would generate over 6,200 jobs, $646 million in tax revenue and $1.1 billion in economic activity for Nevada by 2024.
Hartman and Hickey, however, said Nevada’s ballot proposal was written “by the industry for the industry,” with laws set to boost sales without accounting for societal consequences. They compared it to the idea of tobacco laws being crafted by cigarette manufacturers, or alcohol regulations being shaped by liquor lobbyists.
The duo also argued that legalized adult use wouldn’t be as effective in mitigating black-market sales as proponents of Question 2 suggest.
Inyo Fine Cannabis owner David Goldwater says some of his biggest competition in Nevada’s medical marijuana industry comes from illegal sellers who provided easy, anonymous access to the product at similar prices.
The central valley dispensary owner thinks Nevada voting yes on Question 2 would help reduce the illegal marijuana trade, but that many frequent street buyers would continue purchasing from their dealers.
“If you’re a stoner, you’re probably still going to your weed guy,” Goldwater said. “If it’s easier, why not just keep doing it?”
In Colorado, Rocky Mountain HIDTA’s Gorman said legalization of recreational marijuana had actually increased the number of dodgy drug traffickers since 2012. He said black-market growers “hide behind the legality” of Colorado’s recreational laws to rent homes, grow product and illegally ship it out of state. “Basically, they’re using the new legalities as a gateway to doing an illegal act.”
If the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol gets its way in Nevada, that scenario might be affected by the gradual normalization of the substance. The local group wants the plant to be as plentiful and available in the Silver State as adult beverages. It recently argued that Nevadans for Responsible Drug Policy had too strong a role in campaigning for a nonprofit, and that it should operate instead as a political action committee.
“We’re not against people forming a healthy discussion; we’re against people hiding money,” said Joe Brezny, spokesman for the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol — a PAC that reportedly sank $800,000 into pro-legalization ads to air in Nevada next month through the election. “All I see is that Pat Hickey is flying back and forth to Vegas, spending money, and we’re just wondering who’s paying the bills.”
Last week, Hickey, Hartman and company answered the call. With a beefed-up staff and a slogan of “Protecting Nevada’s Children,” the No On 2 PAC was announced Sept. 15. Its website cites child-safety concerns and statistics on Colorado’s user growth to urge Nevada voters to turn down November’s ballot question.
“Nevada’s future success depends on a better education system and a well-prepared workforce,” Hickey said. “Commercializing marijuana and trying to turn the Vegas Strip into the Amsterdam of the West will harm both efforts.”
While Brezny said his PAC was supported largely by Nevada marijuana companies, Hickey refused to disclose his anti-marijuana PAC’s funding sources. By state law, that information will become publicly available on Oct. 18.
Both spokesmen said that starting in October, their campaigns would have a heavy advertising presence on Nevada billboards, television and radio stations as well as in print and online outlets.
Brezny, who served as Mitt Romney’s Nevada campaign spokesman in 2008, agrees with Hickey that the issue is the biggest he’s ever worked on, thanks to the effect it will have on “changing a system of regulation.”
“When you’re talking about the possibility of ending prohibition, that’s a huge deal,” Brezny said. “It’s time for a new approach.”