The city of Las Vegas will allow marijuana social-use lounges for the first time in an effort to provide public spaces for marijuana consumption two years after legalized recreational sales launched in Nevada.

Under the new city ordinance, which was passed today in a 4-1 vote by the city council, licensed marijuana businesses in Nevada will be permitted to apply for special-use permits to open consumption lounges at which cannabis products may be sold and consumed on site. After one year, other interested business owners — including those who have not received licenses to operate marijuana dispensaries in Nevada – will be permitted to apply for consumption lounge permits as well.

Nevada’s decades-long experience with gaming means the state was well-equipped to launch its cannabis industry.

During the first year of legal adult-use cannabis sales in Nevada, the state exceeded its expected sales tax revenues by roughly 140%, filling state coffers with a whopping $70 million. Meanwhile, states from Massachusetts to California have been disappointed by their take.

This story has been edited for brevity and clarity and translated from Spanish.

Once hidden underground, it isn’t hard to find marijuana businesses in Nevada these days — they’re the sophisticated buildings in busy strip malls with bold green letters proclaiming “cannabis.”

Marijuana has risen from ignominy to prominence in the state since lawmakers authorized recreational sales in July 2017. And the plant has also taken a prominent role in the life of Priscilla Vilchis, founder of Premium Produce, a company that grows marijuana not too far from the Las Vegas Strip.

Nevada faces complaints about secrecy in awarding licenses to sell marijuana in the state’s booming legal marketplace, boiling over into lawsuits and legislation that appear poised to pry open the process.

Several companies have sued the state tax department, arguing that no one knows for sure the criteria officials use to award new licenses. They complain the state releases no information about who seeks and receives permission to sell cannabis to adults, many of them tourists, in the nearly 2-year-old market.

They will ask a judge Monday to freeze the granting of marijuana dispensary licenses, at least temporarily, until the courts decide whether it’s “arbitrary and capricious and violates the constitution,” one lawsuit says.

Nevada County’s first medical and adult-use dispensary just took another ground-breaking step.

On Wednesday, Elevation 2477’ got the OK from Nevada City’s city council to begin a delivery service, the first permitted delivery business in western Nevada County.

There’s an old saying that ‘all politics is local’ and it turns out the same goes for marijuana prices. A new report from cannabis data company Headset looked at pricing trends from four key states that have fully legalized cannabis including two states with mature sales data and two fairly new states.

The study examines average item prices throughout 2018 and for the first two months of 2019. The sales data comes from customers who participate in store loyalty programs, as well as the $4.5 billion in transactions that Headset tracks.

CROP Infrastructure Corporation’s 49 percent-owned subsidiary, Elite Ventures, reports that its Nevada tenant, Hempire, has been issued 2019 hemp handler, hemp nursery and hemp grower licences.

The licences cover 1,350 irrigated acres (546 hectares) on its 2,115 acres (856 hectares) of owned or leased CBD-focused lands, notes a press release from Vancouver-based CROP, which is publicly listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange and is focused on cannabis branding and real estate assets.

The black market for cannabis is still alive even in states with legalized recreational marijuana. But one Las Vegas dispensary is hoping to introduce a new cannabis brand that will kill off the black market once and for all, writes Joseph Misulonas.

It's not easy being green — especially at CES, the world's largest consumer electronics convention. Marijuana tech companies are grumbling about how difficult it is to participate in CES 2019 because organizers will not allow them to exhibit.

"We’re not allowed on the showroom floor, and it’s apparently because [organizers] say they haven’t created a category for cannabis vaporizers yet," says Jeff Brown, vice president of public policy and communications at PAX Labs, an electronic vaporizer company. 

When people go to Las Vegas, they expect to lose money whether it's through gambling or restaurants or clubs or anything else the city offers. But one person decided their trip to Vegas was not complete without dropping five figures on a blunt, writes Joseph Misulonas.