Lyon County, NV Public Conduct: Public Marijuana Use (2026)

Lyon County Code § 8.03.14 makes it unlawful to consume marijuana in any manner, including smoking or ingesting, inside a motor vehicle while the vehicle is on a public highway in unincorporated Lyon County, Nevada. The same section separately bars keeping marijuana or used paraphernalia anywhere in the vehicle's driver or passenger compartment unless it sits in the trunk, in a locked container not readily accessible, or in an unopened, factory-sealed package; a utility or glove compartment counts as part of the occupied area. Relabeling a marijuana container as a nonmarijuana product does not avoid the rule, and the code creates a rebuttable presumption of a violation when an incorrectly labeled original container turns up in the vehicle after a storage violation.

'Highway' is defined broadly to cover the full width between the boundary lines of any way open to public vehicular traffic, dedicated or not, so gravel county roads in Silver Springs, Dayton, Stagecoach and Mound House count the same as paved arterials. Most violations of § 8.03.14 are misdemeanors, but the Lyon County Sheriff's Office enforces the consumption ban in subsection B under the penalty scale set by Nevada Revised Statutes 453D.400(2) rather than the county's general misdemeanor penalty in § 1.04.01. The ordinance traces to Ord.

592, adopted June 1, 2017, effective June 16, 2017, after Nevada legalized recreational marijuana; the Board of County Commissioners kept public and in-vehicle consumption off-limits even as possession became legal for adults.