New York to probe sputtering authorized marijuana program as storefronts lag, black market booms

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New York will consider its troubled leisure marijuana licensing program after lawsuits and bureaucratic stumbles severely hampered the authorized market and allowed black-market sellers to flourish, Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered Monday.

The evaluate will give attention to methods the state can pace up license processing instances and permit companies to open sooner, in addition to a top-down evaluation of the Workplace of Hashish Administration’s construction and programs.

Hochul, a Democrat, has described the state’s leisure marijuana rollout as a “ catastrophe.” Simply over 80 authorized retailers have opened since gross sales started on the finish of 2022.

The state’s legalization legislation reserved the primary spherical of retail licenses for nonprofits and folks with prior marijuana convictions. It additionally arrange a $200 million “ social fairness ” fund to assist candidates open up retailers, all in an effort to assist these harmed by the warfare on medicine get a foothold of the state’s market.

However the allowing course of was quickly beset by authorized challenges and the so-called fairness fund struggled to get off the bottom, stalling development of the authorized market.

Within the meantime, unlicensed storefronts opened up everywhere in the state, particularly in New York Metropolis, with the issue turning into so pronounced that Hochul final month requested such on-line entities as Google and Yelp to cease itemizing them on-line.

Nonetheless, state regulators have had hassle coping with the overwhelming quantity of functions. The Workplace of Hashish Administration has simply 32 individuals reviewing license functions however has acquired about 7,000 functions since final fall, a spokesman mentioned.

The evaluation of this system was additionally introduced days after a high official on the hashish company was placed on administrative go away following a report from New York Hashish Insider that alleged the company had selectively enforced guidelines to punish a marijuana processor.

The state’s evaluate will embed Jeanette Moy, the commissioner of the state’s Workplace of Basic Providers, and different state authorities officers, within the hashish administration company for no less than 30 days. The group additionally will provide you with plans to enhance how the company capabilities and set efficiency metrics transferring ahead, based on a information launch.

“We’ve constructed a hashish market based mostly on fairness, and there’s a lot to be pleased with,” mentioned Chris Alexander, government director of the Workplace of Hashish Administration. “On the identical time, there may be extra we will do to enhance OCM’s operations and we all know Commissioner Moy, a confirmed chief in authorities, will assist us get the place we must be.”