By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
Members of the Mesquite City Council spent last week vacillating back and forth on whether to introduce bills this month which could allow medical marijuana facilities in the city limits; or whether those items should be delayed for further community discussion.
After more than an hour of discussion at a City Council meeting held Tuesday, July 9, the Council decided in a 4-1 vote to delay the introduction of the two bills which would have set up rules and regulations for medical marijuana facilities. This action allowed a period of six months for extensive public discussion and education on the subject before the board began considering a final action on the item.
But in the days following last week’s vote, council members Cindi DeLaney and Geno Withelder, who had originally voted for the delay, reconsidered their votes. They requested that the bills be placed once again on the agenda for the council’s technical review meeting to be held on July 15 and the City Council Meeting to be held July 22.
At issue was the brief window of time established that applications can be made to State agencies for permits to operate medical marijuana establishments in the state. That application period for this year falls between August 5-15. After that, no more applications will be accepted until a similar period of time next year. Municipalities wishing to allow development of medical marijuana facilities must have rules and regulations in place by the August application period so that potential applicants can file their proposals with the State.
Most of the public comment at the beginning of last week’s meeting requested that the council simply delay the matter until the public could give its full input. Many residents said that the item should wait until the snowbird population returns in the Fall so that those people would have the opportunity to participate in the discussion.
Councilman George Rapson asked legal counsel what ramifications there would be if the whole matter was delayed beyond the August application deadline.
“If we miss that window of time and we don’t have anything in place by then, the state is not going to accept or approve anything for Mesquite,” responded Deputy City Attorney Bob Sweetin. “Therefore, we would be ineligible to have a dispensary for a one year period.”
But this would not keep Mesquite residents from applying for, and obtaining, medical marijuana use cards, Sweetin said. These cards could allow residents to purchase marijuana from dispensaries in Las Vegas and bring the product home for use in Mesquite, he said.
But that was not all. Sweetin explained that the state law also allows cardholders to grow a limited quantity of marijuana for their own use if a licensed dispensary is not available within a twenty-five mile radius of their residence. This would essentially allow for a number of largely unregulated grow facilities within the city limits, Sweetin said.
“The state, in its wisdom, has made it possible for anyone with a card to grow 2.5 ounces (of marijuana) every two weeks,” Litman explained. “That is 60 oz a year, legally. And they can keep plants in various sizes so that they can constantly be producing a crop.”
Litman said that he had researched and found that a typical medical user only needs about 1 ounce per month. Thus, he calculated that a cardholder could end up with as much as 48 ounces in surplus product not needed for his/her own medical use.
Litman pointed out that there is no provision in the state law allowing cardholders to accumulate or stockpile the excess product.
“So where does it go if they are not allowed to accumulate it?” Litman asked. “I think we know the answer. We are going to have a lot of budding entrepreneurs in this community. People are going to sell this product. It is valued at around $200 per ounce, give or take, on the street. So they are going to be producing about $15,000 in extra income annually. And I’m sure there will be plenty of ready customers out there.”
Sweetin explained that a licensed dispensary in the community would, by state law, close off the option for individual cardholders to legally grow their own product.
Councilman Kraig Hafen, who eventually made the motion to delay action on the item, raised a scenario where a cardholder from Las Vegas might be tempted to relocate to the Mesquite community because, in the absence of a licensed dispensary, he could legally grow his own product. Alternatively, a Mesquite resident who had received a permit to grow his own product due to a lack of dispensaries, might move into Las Vegas and continue to produce marijuana there under a grandfathered status.
“I think that there are too many questions that are going to come up with all of this,” Hafen said. “I think that we need to take our time on it. In this case, we really need to measure twice and cut once.”
Rapson, who ended up being the one dissenting vote against Hafen’s motion to delay, said that he had no problem with delaying the item for public discussion. But he wanted everyone to understand that doing so would mean that the City gives up its right to open a dispensary for a whole year. During that time, anyone with a medical marijuana card could grow an excess of the product at home, largely unregulated.
“This is not a simple black and white issue,” Rapson said. “It’s not a question of whether we want drugs or we don’t want drugs. It is a question of how we want drugs; because the drugs are here anyway. Do we want them controlled or uncontrolled?”
“If we control it, state agencies and the health department will regulate it beyond belief,” Rapson continued. “They will know exactly how much each facility grows, exactly what each storefront buys and sells. They will know the quality of the product, the amount of THC it contains and specifically what the plants are bred for. There are good things with having control; as opposed to somebody growing it in their spare bedroom with aluminum foil over the windows and turning on the grow lights.”
Litman said that it was doubtful that a Mesquite dispensary would be a financially viable business considering there are only around 40 medical marijuana cardholders currently residing in Mesquite.
Rapson agreed with this, stating that it was more likely that the City would see applicants for a grow facility rather than a dispensary.
“We have cheaper power and water,” Rapson said. “They can probably even use some of our re-use water to grow this stuff. The buildings are cheaper, they are ventilated and filtered. I think that a production facility would be more likely and more viable than a retail shop. But even with a grow facility, we still have the problem of people being allowed to grow their own marijuana here. The grow facilities are only allowed to sell to licensed dispensaries. So it is a kind of catch-22.”
Rapson said that a possible solution might be to license a grow facility with the condition that it also provide a dispensary component with limited operation hours of, perhaps, two hours per day. That would then allow an economically feasible business model and, at the same time, satisfy the requirements for a licensed dispensary in the community, Rapson said.
The item will be discussed at a technical review meeting on July 15 at 1:30 p.m. at Mesquite City Hall. Public comment will be available both at that meeting and at the regular City Council meeting on July 22 where the item would be officially read into the record. The council will decide only whether to proceed with a public hearing of the items. If the decision is made to proceed, the public hearing would be held at a special meeting on August 5.
