After Democrats reclaimed the New York state house in this November\u2019s elections, the prospect of cannabis legalization in the Empire State suddenly became less of a question of\u00a0if\u00a0than\u00a0when. Any lingering doubts were erased earlier this month when Governor Cuomo announced that creating an adult-use market will be one of his top priorities in 2019.<\/p>\n
A few weeks after the election, but before Cuomo put his stamp of approval on cannabis New York City\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0nascent cannabis media community \u2014 joined by some esteemed out-of-town guests \u2014 gathered in the sunny Manhattan office of canna-friendly law firm Duane Morris for the inaugural New York\u00a0Cannabis Media Summit<\/a>. Although, sure, there\u2019s inevitability something annoyingly meta about the media covering a media convention, the event, albeit informally, helped establish some of the standards and norms that New York cannabis media will employ to ensure responsibility as New York comes online.<\/p>\n The event was organized by\u00a0Mannada<\/a>, a local events production company with an emphasis on cannabis. As Mannada founder Kristin Jordan told Cannabis Now, the event\u2019s success necessitated a commitment to diversity and inclusion. \u201cMy main goal for the Cannabis Media Summit was to create an intimate space for media professionals from all over the country to connect and share best practices to further an inclusive and educated industry,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n Jordan\u2019s message is particularly timely: Just before the event, NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer released\u00a0a report<\/a>\u00a0highlighting the stark\u00a0racial disparity<\/a>\u00a0in cannabis arrests in the city. Stringer notes, among other appalling statistics, that arrests of Black and Latinx individuals comprise nearly 90 percent of all marijuana arrests in the city.<\/p>\n Diversity was a common theme throughout the day-long summit, which took place in a conference room high above Times Square, with giant video ads on neighboring skyscrapers flashing through the windows. Edmund DeVeaux, of\u00a0New Jersey<\/a>\u00a0consulting firm Burton Trent, spoke about being literally the only African-American cannabis lawyer in his state. Cynthia Salarizadeh, managing partner of KCSA Media and co-founder of Green Market Media, addressed the ways in which cannabis media changes. \u201cCoverage evolves\u2026today it covers what really matters: social justice,\u201d she said. But, perhaps ironically, Salarizadeh represents Acreage Holdings \u2014 where former GOP House leader and anti-cannabis legislator\u00a0John Boehner<\/a>\u00a0now sits on the board.<\/p>\n The event\u2019s emotional climax was a surprise appearance by Rylie Maedlar, a 13-year-old advocate who used\u00a0medical cannabis<\/a>\u00a0to combat seizures and tumors in her face, and who subsequently succeeded in persuading Delaware lawmakers to ease regulations around kids\u2019 access to medical cannabis. It was Maedler\u2019s birthday, and the whole group donned party hats to sing \u201cHappy Birthday.\u201dPraising Rylie later in the day, High Times Chief Revenue Officer Matt Stang argued that \u201cYou can\u2019t say no [to someone who needs cannabis].\u201d He also asserted that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is a \u201cmonster\u201d for disagreeing with him. The problem is that, yes, you can. Much of the mainstream media along with tons of state and municipal governments, not to mention the feds, all continue to say no. Stang\u2019s comment shed some light on one of the biggest hurdles facing cannabis media around the country: You can\u2019t assume that the science is enough to persuade the skeptics.<\/p>\n New York cannabis media will likely soon face the opportunity to introduce cannabis to an enormous new audience. If nothing else, the Cannabis Media Summit was a succinct reminder that doing so carries responsibility.<\/p>\n TELL US,\u00a0<\/b>what topics do you think the cannabis media should focus on?<\/p>\n The post As New York\u2019s Cannabis Prospects Grow Brighter, the State\u2019s Media Gathers to Learn<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
After Democrats reclaimed the New York state house in this November\u2019s elections, the prospect of cannabis legalization in the Empire State suddenly became less of a question of\u00a0if\u00a0than\u00a0when. Any lingering doubts were erased earlier this month when Governor Cuomo announced that creating an adult-use market will be one of hisContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3922,50,6817,6818,69,3899,415,208,593,6819],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31506,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31505\/revisions\/31506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: As New York\u2019s Cannabis Prospects Grow Brighter, the State\u2019s Media Gathers to Learn<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"