Get ready to pay at a Las Vegas marijuana dispensary, and the substance’s illicit status at the federal level becomes quickly apparent. Cash, yes, please. Debit card, maybe. Credit card, no cannabis for you.

Since November of 2020, Riana Durrett has served as the Vice Chair of the Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board, the regulatory agency for the billion-dollar Nevada cannabis industry. A graduate of the Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Durrett previously served nearly six years as the Executive Director of the Nevada Cannabis Association (formerly Nevada Dispensary Association) and simultaneously serves as the Director of UNLV’s Cannabis Policy Institute, which regularly hosts impactful events featuring very notable cannabis professionals and regulators from other states with recreational cannabis as far away as Maine.

Nevada is taking its first serious steps toward exploring a potential merger of its gaming and cannabis industries, as policymakers and industry leaders discuss how these two major sectors can legally co-exist. A recent panel hosted by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) brought this conversation into the spotlight, as reported by Kolo.

Recreational cannabis has been legal in Nevada since 2017. By most measures legal pot has been a success, serving the public while generating nearly a billion dollars in sales and more than $130 million in tax revenue annually without causing significant societal harm.

Can the major industries of gaming and cannabis ever co-exist in Nevada? Policy experts, industry insiders and local leaders are discussing the possibilities within state law, all to give tourists and locals more consumer options. UNLV’s Cannabis Policy Institute and the UNLV International Gaming Institute recently held a panel on federal regulations, state and local laws, and interest from industry leaders in gaming and cannabis.

Nevada has held itself as the “gold standard” in gaming regulation for more than three score. And now, for nearly a decade, the state has used that model to claim its stake as a leader in cannabis regulation, too. But bringing those two together has been more like oil and water than chocolate and peanut butter.

It’s illegal to smoke or consume cannabis products in Nevada casinos, but marijuana use on the Resort Corridor is still prevalent. From the storefronts on Fremont Street advertising various types of flower to the tourists crammed into alleyways or in parking garages adjoining Strip resorts enjoying a smoke, many people aren’t aware that cannabis has been outlawed from gaming establishment properties.

The Biden Administration took steps toward decriminalizing marijuana two weeks ago when the Drug Enforcement Agency announced its intent to reclassify the drug from a Schedule I controlled substance to a Schedule III.