Clues

For those seeking political tea leaves on the state cannabis medication program in primary election returns, the Lyon County sheriff's race may offer some hints in a jurisdiction that includes bedroom communities for Reno and Carson.

That county's incumbent sheriff, Allen Veil, took one of the more extreme postures around the state, successfully seeking a local ordinance to ban the voter-approved program and talking about how organized crime and money laundering will come to Lyon County if medical dispensaries are allowed.

Veil is retiring from office, and four candidates are seeking to replace him. Of those four—Steven Adams, Greg Kantz, Al McNeil and Albert Torres—it's possible from their stated positions to gauge where they stood on dispensaries, while acknowledging that other issues no doubt came into play.

Torres opposes cannabis medication entirely and is closest to Veil's position, opposing any dispensaries in the county at all. McNeil and Kantz seemed to try to walk a tightrope between positions, Kantz saying medical marijuana was a persistent issue with the public but in the end opposing dispensaries, and McNeil challenging the sheriff's claim of increased crime accompanying dispensaries but then also claiming they would foster money laundering. Adams seemed most supportive of patients' rights, saying they should be treated if they had medical need and the support of their physicians, though he didn't directly address the question of medical dispensaries.

In the primary election, here is how they placed: McNeil 34.45 percent; Torres 31.54; Adams 23.42; Kantz 10.59.