Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Sun Editorial:

Leaders must fight to honor Nevadans’ choice on marijuana

Nevadans spoke loud and clear about legalizing the adult use of recreational marijuana, approving a November ballot measure on the issue by nearly 100,000 votes.

Now, the state’s leaders must take every reasonable action to carry out the results of the vote, including opposing any effort by federal officials to inhibit the will of Nevada and other states to loosen laws on pot.

In the aftermath of last week’s announcement by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer that the feds would be stepping up enforcement of federal laws banning the sale and use of recreational marijuana, there’s been a great deal of uncertainty about how Nevada would be affected.

But if a showdown occurs between the feds and the state, it’s a no-brainer where Nevada’s leaders should line up — directly behind the voters.

To their credit, some Nevada leaders immediately stood up for the state after hearing Spicer’s remarks.

“Such comments from the White House underscore the need for Congress to step up and protect the interests of the states that have chosen to regulate marijuana like alcohol,” Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said in a release. “This is clearly in keeping with public sentiment nationally. I’ll continue to work with my colleagues in Washington, D.C., to protect the interests of Nevadans from any targeting by the Trump administration.”

Perfect. That’s what Nevadans expect.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., also hit the nail on the head when she told reporters it would be hypocritical for Republicans, who generally howl at any efforts by the federal government to impose on states rights, to impose a crackdown on the issue. She indicated that she and other elected leaders from states that had approved recreational marijuana would oppose Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the feds.

Of course, Republicans could say that Democrats also are hypocritical on the issue, given that they have generally been the party in favor of expansion of the federal government. But there’s an important distinction to make in this case. The federal government can and should intercede when states are restricting a given civil right, but it’s an overreach to contend that voters don’t have the right to liberalize the criminal code and end the unnecessary and expensive process of prosecuting and imprisoning people for marijuana usage.

But the reaction from Republican leaders such as Gov. Brian Sandoval, Sen. Dean Heller and Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt has been about as namby-pamby as it gets. All three indicated they were aware of the situation and were “monitoring” it.

Given that Heller is up for re-election in 2018 and Laxalt has all but announced he’s running for governor the same year, those two in particular need to remember that 54 percent of Nevadans voted in favor of recreational marijuana. If Heller and Laxalt choose to sell out those voters to serve the Trump gang, they do so at considerable political risk.

Meanwhile, Sandoval’s reaction is confounding. Sandoval didn’t endorse Trump, didn’t attend the Republican National Convention and has pushed back on Trump’s call to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, so the governor is clearly not part of the twisted crowd clamoring to appeal to the president’s base. In fact, in many ways he’s positioned himself as Trump’s polar opposite in the GOP — an even-tempered coalition builder who is pro-choice, has moderate views on immigration and was among the early adopters of the Affordable Care Act. Sandoval opposed the marijuana ballot measure, but he certainly seemed to accept the results when he wrote tax revenue from marijuana into his 2017 budget.

So here’s hoping Sandoval steps up if and when the feds begin their overreach. The same goes for all local, state and congressional representatives.

As is all too typical with the Trump administration, Spicer’s statement has created a great deal of confusion about what actions the feds will take. The administration hasn’t issued an action plan, rendering Spicer’s comment about as meaningless as when Trump and his gang announced they were “putting Iran on official notice,” whatever that meant.

But given some of Sessions’ past remarks about marijuana use (such as, “Good people don’t smoke marijuana”) there’s good reason to believe the feds might go Eliot Ness on the weed industry in Nevada and other states where recreational marijuana has been legalized.

“States, they can pass the laws they choose,” Sessions said this week. “I would just say it does remain a violation of federal law to distribute marijuana throughout any place in the United States, whether a state legalizes it or not.”

Sessions can say what he wants, but opposing the ongoing criminalization of marijuana is a cause worth fighting for. Not only has the prohibition led to unnecessary incarceration and enormous expense for enforcement and prosecution, there is study after study showing that marijuana is less toxic to the body than alcohol and tobacco, both of which are legal for use by adults. Legalizing and taxing marijuana makes more sense than leaving sales and distribution solely in the hands of cartels and street gangs.

And it’s not as if there’s enormous public sentiment against legalization. A new Quinnipiac poll shows that national support for it is even greater percentage-wise than it was in Nevada — 59 percent in favor, 36 percent against.

The anti-marijuana crowd may quibble about polling, but what’s inarguable is that the people of Nevada have already decided what’s best for the state. Now, the state’s leaders have a responsibility to carry it out.

Editor’s note: Brian Greenspun, the CEO, publisher and editor of the Las Vegas Sun, has an ownership interest in Essence Cannabis Dispensary.

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy