NY Post Editorial: New York’s legal-weed rollout looks ever more dope-y
By Post Editorial Board
Published Sep. 6, 2023, 7:26 p.m. ET
As New York’s legal-cannabis rollout continues to stumble, it grows ever more obvious that the decision-makers were all far more focused on scoring symbolic points than on silly things like actually making it work.
The companies already OK’d to sell medical marijuana could have led the way to broader pot sales; instead, they got shut out.
Rather than pursuing its legislated mandate to develop licensing, regulations and guidelines for the sale of legal weed products, the state’s Office of Cannabis Management focused on a social-equity agenda by prioritizing applicants who had prior drug convictions.
Medical-MJ firms — who were the first in the state authorized to peddle any cannabis — just slammed the Hochul administration for blocking them from selling to all adult consumers.
“OCM has ignored the collective wisdom of every other state with an adult-use cannabis program — most recently Maryland — to permit existing medical operators to stand up the adult-use market,” the companies wrote in an Aug. 31 letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Of course, the gov’s brain trust at OCM also shut out the veterans that the law also directed them to prioritize for licenses; that’s led to a lawsuit that has all licensing on hold.
Meanwhile, OCM’s slow start in licensing anyone at all has led to just 23 licensed dispensaries open across the whole Empire State.