Latest joint on the Strip
LAS VEGAS — Amid the casinos and the shows, the bars and the pools, the Strip now welcomes a medical marijuana dispensary.
Sandwiched between the SLS and the Stratosphere, Essence Cannabis Dispensary, which opened Wednesday, is the f irst such facility on Las Vegas Boulevard.
Medical marijuana has been legal in Nevada since 2000, but dispensaries in the state weren’t legalized until 2013. Since then, medical marijuana stores have begun popping up around southern Nevada.
It’s illegal for people with medical marijuana cards from California and other states to transport their stash across state lines, but they can legally purchase and consume cannabis in Nevada with another state’s card.
Nevadans often have to wait a month or more for a medical marijuana card, thanks to a background check.
Essence founder and Chief Executive Armen Yemenidjian thinks the Strip location will be the key to his success.
Yemenidjian predicts that 70% to 90% of the customers at his Strip store will be Vegas visitors, many of them from the Southland. About 42 million people visited Sin City in 2015, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. In 2014, 27% of Vegas visitors were from Southern California.
“Some people may not want to travel to places where it’s not legal,” Yemenidjian said, “so it has the potential to increase tourism.”
Like other dispensaries, Essence sells products to treat various medical conditions, including pain, nausea and sleep deprivation. Patients can cook with cannabis- infused butter, munch on a coconut macaroon laced with tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, or smoke a joint made with potent cannabis f lower.
Marijuana may not be smoked in public.
Consultations with a registered nurse are offered free of charge.
Essence is buying its marijuana from other growers but will begin growing its own in a 55,000- square- foot cultivation center about a mile from the Strip.
When fully operational around the end of the year, the computer- controlled facility will grow about 35,000 plants at any given time. Yemenidjian then plans to begin offering tours.
“It’s one of the most sophisticated [ cultivation centers] in the country,” he said. “We want people to come in and see what we’re doing.”
In November, residents will vote on an initiative that would legalize recreational use of marijuana for those 21 and older.