The New York Office of Cannabis Management, in charge of developing the regulation of this market in the state, assured this Tuesday that it was aware of the illegal sales businesses that have proliferated in the Big Apple in recent months and announced that they will begin to be seen the results of its performance next year, as its structure grows.
This was stated by the agency’s deputy director of legislative affairs, Tahlil McGough, at a community forum organized by legislator Gale Brewer to address the concerns of neighbors about those illegal businesses that have taken advantage of the “grey areas” and the slowness in the deployment of state law regulating the recreational use of cannabis.
McGough disclosed that the office received nearly 1,000 applications for retail dispensary operating licenses in September, but only 36 licenses have been announced so far – 28 for businesses and 8 for non-governmental organizations – and revealed that the statewide goal is reach between 3,000 and 4,000 dispensaries in the future, which will take years.
Both the legislator and several members of the community called attention to businesses that are violating the law and agency regulations by selling unlicensed cannabis products, including to those under 21 years of age, in establishments such as tobacco stores, neighborhood bodegas or specialized sites that sometimes have neon lights and advertising that includes graffiti and drawings.
Mention was also made repeatedly of the vans selling cannabis products that have been seen for months in tourist areas of downtown Manhattan and that attract passers-by with their music and urban art painted on their exterior, and which, according to some critics, pass through residential neighborhoods or near schools and places of worship.
“All these people have not waited for the regulations or read the law, they think that just because (cannabis for recreational use) has been legalized they have the right to sell it, which is not true,” said the official, who clarified that if businesses that are not licensed or taxed may be prosecuted because they are not legal.
Of course, he stressed that when talking about “applying the law” and persecuting them, arrests or jail sentences are not being considered, but the closure of stores and trucks and the seizure of illegal cannabis, which to a large extent “is being trafficked between states, which constitutes a federal crime”, and that since it has not been tested supposes “a health and safety problem”.
“The bottom line of the cannabis legalization issue was to ensure that the money was collected and returned to those communities that were disproportionately impacted” by policies that have especially criminalized the black and Latino population for the possession and use of marijuana in the past, “so they are being deceived” with this illegal activity, he added.
In this sense, he indicated that the agency has not been around for long and may “seem to be doing nothing,” but it has been working with other agencies since February, obtaining information from places that violate the rules, investigating their activity and sending undercover agents, a task in which he encouraged neighbors to report places of concern.