Attendees at Las Vegas Hemp Festival celebrate marijuana legalization

For the past three years the Las Vegas Hemp Festival has been hosted at the Craig Ranch Regional Park, but this year's fest was quite different. Last November, Nevada voters passed a measure legalizing the possession and use of up to 1 ounce of marijuana, opening up the doors for a lot more fun during this year's festivities. The all-day event welcomed close to 15,000 guests, live performances, and 100 generous vendors who were able to offer adults over 21 many samples of the dabs and prerolls available. As usual, uniformed officers were present during the festival, but this year they were more focused on those trespassing than the plethora of tokers openly consuming legal weed. 

Nevadans voted last November to legalize possession and use of up to 1 ounce of recreational marijuana or one-eighth of an ounce of marijuana concentrates, such as shatter, oil and wax. Ballot Question 2 became law on Jan. 1.

At the festival, vendors offered free dabs of marijuana concentrate products, serving thousands of gratuitous sample-seeking attendees, while others handed out small flower-packed joints and THC-laced edible spin-offs of popular candies.

”At first I wasn’t sure if it was allowed, but they seemed more bothered with a couple vehicles driving up on the rocks here than us smoking,” Inano said. “This is the first year people have really felt confident enough to medicate openly.”