Five years after legalization, New York cannabis market remains a work in progress

Five years after New York legalized recreational marijuana, the state’s legal cannabis market continues to grow, but some of the issues that complicated its rollout remain unresolved. 

The state is still fighting an illicit cannabis market, community reinvestment money is still making its way to communities disproportionately impacted by past drug enforcement and New York has continued making changes to its regulatory system. 

Now, one of the lawmakers most closely tied to legalization is preparing to leave Albany. 

Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, D-Buffalo, helped write the Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act, or MRTA, which legalized adult-use cannabis in New York in 2021. 

Peoples-Stokes defended the progress made by the state’s Office of Cannabis Management, while acknowledging that building the regulatory system has taken time. 

“It took time to figure it out,” Peoples-Stokes said. “And then once you did get to figure out, you had to go to court because people challenged that. They didn’t challenge necessarily the law. They challenged the regulation that would implement the law.” 

A central goal of MRTA was ensuring that people and communities disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition had an opportunity to participate in the legal industry. 

That work is continuing five years later. 

New York’s Community Reinvestment Program directs cannabis tax revenue toward communities disproportionately affected by previous state and federal drug policies. The second round of the program includes $15 million in available funding, up from $5 million in the first round. Award notifications for the latest round are expected later this month. 

The state has also had to make other adjustments to the regulatory system. Earlier this year, a correction took effect addressing how proximity requirements for cannabis businesses near schools and houses of worship were applied. 

Republican state Sen. George Borrello, who sits on the Senate Cannabis Committee, argues those problems cannot all be attributed to implementation.

Borrello voted against MRTA in 2021 and said the problems New York is confronting today are similar to concerns he raised when lawmakers considered the legislation. 

“You legalized the possession of illegal weed on day one, two years before the market even sold its first legal cannabis,” Borrello said. 

Peoples-Stokes has compared the development of New York’s cannabis industry to the regulation of alcohol, arguing that establishing a new legal market takes time. 

When asked to respond to that comparison, Borrello said New York should regulate cannabis more like alcohol. 

“If you would have handled marijuana the same way we handle alcohol, we’d be okay,” Borrello said. “You would have restrictions on where you can consume it, who can sell it. You would have stricter controls and you would have real enforcement.” 

The state Office of Cannabis Management pushes back on the idea that legalization created New York’s cannabis market.