15 July, 2017
Under Nevada's voter approved marijuana law, alcohol distributors were initially given an 18-month monopoly on the transportation of all recreational cannabis.
The State Tax Commission is scheduled to vote Thursday on an emergency measure Gov. Brian Sandoval endorsed late last week in an effort to allow the state to issue pot distribution licenses now banned by a court order.
After almost two weeks of dispensaries selling recreational marijuana without a way to restock their shelves, the pot will soon start flowing in Nevada.
DeVolld said that it was critical to pass the emergency regulations, adding that the burgeoning legal marijuana industry in the country was important to Nevada's economy.
Blackbird Logistics has been a medical marijuana distributor since 2015, but recently partnered with an alcohol distributor to allow them to distribute cannabis on the retail market, making them officially the first licensed cannabis distributor on the legal Nevada market.
A judge granted a temporary injunction, which the state is appealing to the Nevada Supreme Court, after the Independent Alcohol Distributors of Nevada persuaded him the state had arbitrarily concluded there was an insufficient number of liquor wholesalers to meet the demand.
On July 1, 2017, Nevada became the fifth state in the United States to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana.
Kevin Benson, the alcohol group's lawyer, stopped short of threatening another lawsuit.
Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval opposed last year's recreational marijuana bill but approved the emergency regulation last week.
"There aren't enough alcohol distributors serving that market", Riana Durrett, executive director of the Nevada Dispensary Association, said at a hearing on the matter Thursday, the Los Angeles Times reported from Las Vegas.
But she told the state Tax Commission Thursday it's too soon to tell if Crooked Wine of Reno and Rebel Wine of Las Vegas will be able to handle the demand for all 47 licensed retailers statewide.
A legal battle over distribution of pot for recreational use threatens to jeopardize the flow of supplies from growers and manufacturers to retailers in the coming weeks.
Regulators agreed to change its rules for issuing distribution licenses after a lack of applicants prevented dispensaries from restocking their shelves, rejecting a rule giving exclusive transport rights to wholesale alcohol distributors and opening up the application process to distributors already authorized to delivery medical marijuana.
Nevada Department of Taxation spokeswoman Stephanie Klapstein said Thursday a license has been granted for an alcohol wholesaler - Crooked Wine Co. - to distribute pot products in compliance with a court order. The law dictates only alcohol wholesalers can transport pot from growers to store fronts for the next 18 months.
"We are now informed that many have only days or weeks of product to be sold", he said last week when the governor announced his endorsement of the emergency regulations to facilitate the issuing of distribution licenses to existing retailers.
