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CategoriesCulture, Marijuana News by

Smoking Weed on the Las Vegas Strip

Smoking Weed on the Las Vegas Strip, will it ever be possible?

Nevada is a tourism-driven state, and many are wondering why smoking weed in Las Vegas is not an option. Marijuana is legal in Nevada, but the only place to consume it is at home. Nevada Senator Tick Segerblom says tourists deserve better, “We’re trying to get $70 million in tax revenue from them, so let’s give them some place to use it.”
So far, no states allow public consumption of marijuana. However, there are a few weed friendly hotels in Oregon, Washing and Colorado. Nevada does not want to continue going without a place for tourists to consume safely. Especially in a high foot traffic city like Las Vegas.

What is Las Vegas planning to provide stoners?

Nevada senators understand that hundreds of tourists will absolutely take cannabis back to their hotel rooms to smoke. They will also smoke in public on the strip right next to families. The goal is to create safe-zones for cannabis consumers without the risk of casinos getting shut down by government agents.
One idea Nevada senators have is to create marijuana lounges on the Las Vegas strip and in-between hotels and casinos. This will allow tourists to get high in a social setting, walk out to visit casinos and gamble. Then visit nearby shops and buy delicious munchies, followed by reserving a room to nap or sleep for the night.

The legal fear keeping casinos from setting up cannabis lounges.

The big scare is that weed is currently federally illegal, and classified as a schedule one drug. Leaving casino owners afraid of a big shut down. “It’s federally illegal and we can’t have it in our resorts,” says Andy Abboud, the vice president of government relations. Governor Jon Hickenlooper warned that allowing marijuana into casino resorts could draw the attention of drug enforcers upon the billion-dollar industry. However, most Nevada senators strongly believe that it is a risk worth taking.
Sen. Segerblom says that Las Vegas, NV has always been known for its legal vices and pleasure. Things that people do not condone but are still conducted within a couple miles of the casinos. Forty-six million tourists visit Nevada annually and a majority of them will be buying weed from dispensaries.
Nevada senators expect customers to take weed back to their hotel rooms to smoke. And expected to smoke on the street and on the Las Vegas strip. This will cause unnecessary headaches for law enforcement and the community. Therefore, why not create designated areas for people to smoke marijuana. And to relieve the unnecessary tension before people get hurt?

Marijuana bill will make Nevada first state to set up Marijuana Lounges.

The Nevada Senate has already approved the plan to create marijuana lounges. If Governor Brian Sandoval signs bill SB 236, that would make Nevada the first state to allow recreational cannabis clubs. The fear is that the government will still impose strict sanctions and release anti-weed attorney general Jeff Sessions to come knocking on their doors.

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CategoriesAnalysis/Opinion, Culture, Marijuana News by

Sessions Takes First Big Swing at Pot

After months in the making, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken the first swing at cannabis. His attack comes in the form of changing the policy set out by former Attorney General Eric Holder. Known as the Holder Memo, the 2013 directive asked federal prosecutors to avoid charging defendants with crimes that trigger mandatory minimums. It has also been the main legal protection states have relied upon when installing recreational marijuana laws.
Sessions has officially directed federal prosecutors to charge defendants with the most serious provable crimes possible. Specifically, crimes which carry minimum sentences and the harshest penalties. He even wants prosecutors to pursue punishments as far above minimum as is deemed physically possible.
He has directed federal prosecutors to use whatever means necessary to achieve his goals through his recent directive. With it, he has revealed the bloody legacy he intends to leave. He has decided to make his stand on the bloody and chained backs of mothers, fathers, the terminally ill and mentally unstable.
Sessions doesn’t want to reserve the harshest penalties for defendants with known gang, violence or large-scale trafficking histories. He wants to instill terror in the population. And the only tools at his disposal is the entire federal judicial system.

Is the water really that hot?Sessions feels froggy

Sessions laid out his plan in a two-page memo and sent it to more than 5,000 assistant U.S. attorneys. In the document, Sessions orders prosecutors to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense”. That is as clear a declaration of was as there ever was and marks the first significant criminal justice effort by the Trump regime.
In language that reflects a deluded and willfully malicious view of humanity, The attorney general’s memo claims that “By definition, the most serious offenses are those that carry the most substantial guidelines sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences.”
This move is likely to repeat the mistakes of the War on Drugs which has had a catastrophic impact on poor and minority communities. But Sessions is determined to leverage every last vestige of power to achieve his goals, even if that means blood in the streets and putting federal inmates into private prisons.

One Sessions to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them.

Although Sessions sees private prisons as another tool to increase incarceration rates. Sessions claimed earlier this year that decreasing the number of private prisons had “impaired the [Bureau of Prisons’] ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system”.
When confronted with a declining murder rate and decreased recidivism due to mental health treatments, Sessions claims that only more aggressive tactics can prevent a new violent epidemic. Instead of more mental health treatment and less punishment, Jeff Sessions feels that locking people in cages is the best way to treat his fellow Americans in 2017 and beyond.
 

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CategoriesMarijuana Legalization, Marijuana News by

War on Drugs: Medical Marijuana

The war on medical marijuana is causing uncertainty.

The war on medical marijuana has arisen due to President Trumps latest document, causing uncertainty in the community. Medical marijuana programs exist in 29 U.S. states and have large public support.
White House aides argue that the President’s objections do not cause immediate policy changes. “It just creates a lot of uncertainty, and that uncertainty is deeply concerning for patients and providers,” said Michael Collins, deputy director of the Drug Policy Alliance. The public is concerned because the government insists that although weed is federally illegal, it will not impose strict punishments.
And yet, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently directed federal prosecutors to pass harsher punishments for drug defendants.

Does the government know what it wants?

Recreational weed smokers have more to fear from federal intervention. The President says that he sees a big difference between medical marijuana prescribed to patients by doctors and recreational weed.
The provision in question prohibits the Justice Department from spending money that interferes with state medical marijuana programs. “I will treat this provision consistently with my constitutional responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” Trump wrote in the signing statement.
Trump has objected on constitutional grounds to a program that helps black colleges and universities get low-cost construction loans.
According to Tom Angell, founder of Marijuana Majority, Trump is essentially saying that he reserves the right to ignore the congressionally approved provision. James Cole, a Deputy Attorney General had prosecutors enforce all federal drug laws, even in places where marijuana is legal. On the other hand, Cole wrote that federal authorities should stay out of states that have regulatory systems in place. Medical marijuana is to be revised again by Congress in the next few months. It seems like the trend is to allow the government to pick and choose who to prosecute for marijuana offenses.