New York legal cannabis market exceeds $230 million in sales in first full year
New Yorkers are reaping the benefits of a new adult industry but not everyone is happy a year on from its introduction.
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At the US Open last year, a recognisable aroma wafted over the outside courts at New York’s Flushing Meadows.
“It was weed,” top 10 Greek player Maria Sakkari announced to the press, saying the pungent fragrance had distracted her during her upset first-round loss to Spain’s Rebeka Masarova. “The smell, oh, my gosh.”
German star Alexander Zverev was even more, er, blunt: “Court 17 definitely smells like Snoop Dogg’s living room.”
It’s hard to argue. In recent years the smell of burning marijuana on the streets – and parks – of New York has become as ubiquitous as dodgy hot dog carts and bad Uber drivers.
Because New Yorkers – who’ve always been partial to the green stuff – can now light up legally.
Since New York State legalised recreational marijuana use in 2021, it is legal for adults 21 and older to possess up to 85 grams of cannabis and up to 24 grams of concentrated cannabis for personal use.
And adults can smoke or vape cannabis wherever smoking tobacco is allowed under the smoke-free air laws so many New Yorkers have embraced the move, content to stroll along the city’s footpaths, uninhibited, joint or vape in hand.
Not surprisingly, the legalisation of cannabis has led to an explosion of weed dispensaries throughout the city’s five boroughs. (There’s even one on my street in a very sedate northern Manhattan neighbourhood where the population skews towards the silver-haired set.)
In 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams – a former cop who, when he was elected in 2021, vowed to bring more law and order to the city which has struggled to recover financially and emotionally from the pandemic – was publicly effusive in his support for the move.
“Enjoy yourself, light up, but most importantly – spend some money,” Mayor Adams said.
The one-time New York City police captain even appointed a “cannabis tsar”, Dasheeda Dawson, to help burgeoning entrepreneurs deal with state regulations and to educate New Yorkers about the industry.
“New York was home to the cannabis consumer – we reported to have the most cannabis consumers in the country,” Ms Dawson said last month.
“We have, in my opinion, one of the most sensible public use laws in the country.”
New York’s legal cannabis market generated more than $US150 million ($A230 million) in sales in its first full year, according to data released by the state’s Office of Cannabis Management last December.
And more and more of the other green stuff is expected to be raked in; Governor Kathy Hochul’s 2023 fiscal plan predicted that New York State was expected to make a staggering $US1.25 billion ($A1.9 billion) in cannabis revenue over the next six years.
But the grey area between legalisation and licensing businesses to sell the product legally has caused a few teething problems.
New York’s adult-use retail market hasn’t officially been ratified, but unlike neighbouring New Jersey, which legalised cannabis in early 2021 but didn’t allow legal sales until mid-2022, New York’s politicians have taken something of a Wild West approach, turning a blind eye to the secret and not-so-secret clubs, trucks and gift shops that popped up immediately throughout the city. In fact, reports suggest that of New York’s estimated 1500 weed storefronts, only nine are licensed operations.
Publicly, Mayor Adams put on a lenient front, saying he didn’t plan on cracking down during New York’s transition stage.
‘“Listen, you can’t do this’, give them a warning,” Adams said.
But there’s no denying there have been very real benefits to easier cannabis availability in the city.
As part of a concerted effort to prioritise those communities disproportionately harmed by the drug war and slapped with criminal records over small marijuana infractions, New York State’s first marijuana licenses were given to entrepreneurs with minor drug records.
And people dealing with chronic illness in New York have greater availability to medicinal marijuana products – gummies, tinctures and balms.
Kate Dennis is a 54-year-old New Yorker who has dealt with chronic pain post-breast cancer, but cannabis products have made the after-effects of her illness more manageable for her. (She was showered with prescription opioids by her doctors but the oxycontin they were happy to hand out made her feel “like a zombie”.)
“They’ve helped address my ongoing pain and sleep issues, and also the nausea I had during chemo, but mainly they’ve made a huge difference to my pain,” she said. “Before I would have to make a five-hour round trip to Massachusetts (where cannabis has been fully legal since 2018) to get what I needed. Now I can get it down the block.”
Not everyone’s so happy, however.
In a federal lawsuit, the Cannabis Impact Prevention Coalition have accused New York’s politicians of “money laundering” and challenging the legality of Governor Hochul’s $US200 million ($A306 million) Cannabis Social Equity Fund that was established to help open more marijuana retail shops.
It’s the second lawsuit that the Cannabis Impact Prevention Coalition has filed challenging New York’s legalised marijuana market.
The coalition also filed a case in New York State’s Supreme Court that sought to overturn the legalisation of marijuana in the city. The civil complaint compares the state’s contention about the industry, including its prescribed medical uses, to tobacco companies that made fraudulent claims about their products.
And it seems it’s not only tennis players who aren’t happy with the stench, either.
“I have to hold my breath walking down the street to our hotel,” a friend visiting from London said of the mid-town precinct where his wife and kids were shocked by the overpowering smell.
Recently, even Mayor Adams has changed his tune, with he and Governor Hochul vowing to come down hard and threatening the landlords who rent shop space to illegal marijuana sellers $US10,000 ($A15,000) fines under a new law that aims to crack down on the illegal smoke shops that continue to trade.
Seems you can’t have your weed and eat it, too.
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Originally published as New York legal cannabis market exceeds $230 million in sales in first full year
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