Nevada’s cannabis industry has broken the $100 million dollar mark in taxes and fees for the first time. Dispensaries, cultivators, laboratories and producers have paid more than $109 million in taxes and fees in fiscal year 2019.

$99.18 million was paid in taxes compared to $74.7 million last year. How much of that went to education is not yet available from the state. However, changes to the law this year under the leadership of Governor Sisolak mandate that 100 percent of taxes will go to education in future years. For the next two years, the state is projecting more than $100 million per year in tax collections. Cannabis sales were also up from $529 million in fiscal year 2018 to approximately $639 million in fiscal year 2019, an increase of $110 million.

If you use cannabis on your own time in a state where it is legal, should that be grounds for terminating your employment or rejecting your application for a job? Advocates are starting to say no, and demanding action to protest workers’ rights to use cannabis without the fear of the sack and unemployment.

Some states have already made progress in this direction. Yet California, which led the way toward opening legal space for cannabis with the Propositio 215 medical marijuana initiative in 1996, is not among them. Neither 215 nor the Prop 64 adult-use legalization initiative exactly 20 years later provided any such protections.

A Nevada judge has frozen the permit process for some new state retail cannabis stores siding with companies that lost bids to open recreational pot shops.

Clark County District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez issued an injunction Friday afternoon halting several dozen new licenses where questions were raised about the owners compliance with the licensing requirements.

Losing bidders argued the process was so riddled with mistakes and bias that Gonzalez should void 61 licenses that were approved last December from among 462 applications.

Attorneys for Nevada and some companies that won retail dispensary licenses say the process wasn’t perfect, but tax officials are fairly enforcing a voter-approved initiative that legalized recreational pot sales to adults.

With worry over a potential national financial dip, the cannabis industry continues its climb toward employing Americans.

America still has a bit of post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from the great recession that took place around 10 years ago. And that is perfectly understandable. Anyone who was employed at the time knows all too well the toll this financial fiasco had on the economic foundation most of us often take for granted. Somewhere around 8.8 million people lost their jobs during the recession. Unfortunately, some of these workers never truly recovered from it either.

Harvesting of hemp crops has already begun in southern Nevada – the fourth year of harvest in the state.

The state’s hemp sector has come a long way since it began as a research and development program under the 2014 Farm Bill, Nevada Senate Bill 305 and Senate Bill 396. In its first year in 2017, there were only 26 growers.

Over the next decade, legal cannabis is expected to be one of the fastest growing industries on the planet. After generating $10.9 billion in legal worldwide sales in 2018, various Wall Street estimates have called for between $50 billion and $200 billion in global sales in roughly a decade's time. No matter how you slice the data, it calls for an average annual growth rate that's in the double digits.

Nevada has become the first state to prohibit almost all employers in the state from denying employment to job candidates who test positive for marijuana.

Signed into law June 5 by Gov. Steve Sisolak (D), A.B. 132 is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1. Nevada voters approved recreational use of marijuana in 2017.

“As our legal cannabis industry continues to flourish, it’s important to ensure that the door of economic opportunity remains open for all Nevadans,” Sisolak said in a statement, according to Newsweek. “That's why I was proud to sign A.B. 132 into law, which contains common-sense exceptions for public safety and transportation professionals.”

A city ordinance regulating the operation of on-site cannabis consumption spaces will not go into effect following the passage of conflicting statewide legislation.

A new Nevada law prohibits employers from discriminating against potential employees who consume cannabis.

Assembly Bill 132, signed into law by Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak states it is “unlawful for any employer in [Nevada] to fail or refuse to hire a prospective employee submitted to a screening test and the results of the screening test indicate the presence of marijuana.”

The law will take effect beginning January 1, 2020.

The bill still allows for employers to administer drug tests if they choose but they are prohibited from not hiring someone based on the results of the test. Once the law takes effect in January, people will be able to take the issue to court if they feel they were discriminated against based on positive drug test results.

A new state law allowing Nevada to test out a limited marijuana banking system is expected to bring some relief to the state’s booming cannabis industry where dispensaries and other businesses are forced to deal in cash.

The measure, signed into law Wednesday by Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, would let the state treasurer’s office set up a three-year pilot program for cannabis businesses.

State Treasurer Zach Conine, who pushed for the program, said the system would try to remove the large amounts of cash that Nevada’s pot industry must deal with and instead set up an online system where digital currency could be sent and received.