New York and Montana, two states to have recently legalized cannabis, provide a study in contrasts in the question of equity.<\/p>\n
In New York, concrete steps are being taken to shape a market model that corrects the social injustices of prohibition and the War on Drugs. However, advocates are watching with a critical eye to assure that these programs will be implemented in a meaningful way. In Montana, the challenges appear to be greater. Those most excluded from the state\u2019s economy\u2014Native Americans\u2014are having to fight their way into the cannabis market.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s now a year since New York passed the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act (MRTA), perhaps the most progressive and far-reaching state-wide cannabis legalization statute in the country. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2014who faces a challenge from a\u00a0field full of progressive candidates<\/a>\u00a0in the June primaries ahead of the November election\u2014is building on MRTA\u2019s measures for restorative justice.<\/p>\n On March 10, Gov. Hochul announced that the first 100 retail licenses to sell cannabis will go to those with marijuana convictions as part of the MRTA-envisioned\u00a0Social & Economic Equity<\/a>\u00a0program.<\/p>\n Chris Alexander, executive director of the state\u2019s\u00a0Office of Cannabis Management<\/a>, told the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0that by focusing early on \u201cthose who otherwise would\u2019ve been left behind,\u201d New York is in a \u201cposition to do something that hasn\u2019t been done before.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Alexander said he expected between 100 and 200 licenses to go to people who were convicted of a marijuana-related offense pre-legalization, or who have \u201ca parent, guardian, child, spouse or dependent\u201d with a marijuana conviction.<\/p>\n Hochul is asking the state Legislature for $200 million in this year\u2019s budget to be spent on finding, securing and renovating storefronts for cannabis retailers. These initial dispensaries should be up and running by the end of the year, or in early 2023, if the\u00a0proposed regulations<\/a>\u00a0are approved by the Cannabis Control Board.<\/p>\n The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0spoke to one hopeful applicant\u2014Baron Fajardo of Harlem, who was first arrested for cannabis when he was 16. Six more such arrests followed as he moved from smoker to dealer. \u201cAs a person you feel down, a little bit defeated, like \u2018Oh, I got a stain on my name,\u2019\u201d said Fajardo, now 34. \u201cNow, that stain is actually the same thing that can help you.\u201d<\/p>\n Hochul made her announcement of the program two days after New York state\u2019s\u00a0Cannabis Social Equity Coalition<\/a>\u00a0held a rally outside the state capitol building in Albany to press the governor on the question.<\/p>\n The coalition is concerned that Black and other minority entrepreneurs are already being overlooked in an industry model supposedly \u201cdesigned to redress what Black people have been made to endure\u201d under cannabis prohibition, Mika\u2019il DeVeaux, the group\u2019s chairman, told the\u00a0Albany Times-Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been asking for provisional licenses since early 2021,\u201d DeVeaux said.<\/p>\n The first step toward provisional licenses was taken on Feb. 22, when Hochul signed a \u201cconditional cultivation bill\u201d that will allow hemp farmers to grow marijuana for the legal market this year.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m proud to sign this bill, which positions New York\u2019s farmers to be the first to grow cannabis and jumpstart the safe, equitable and inclusive new industry we are building,\u201d Hochul\u00a0stated then<\/a>.<\/p>\n Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes added: \u201cWe\u2019re beginning to undo the devastating impacts more than 90 years of unequal enforcement of marijuana prohibition had on too many lives and communities,\u201d Peoples-Stokes said. \u201cMRTA ensures that the legal adult-use market will be centered on equity and economic justice for communities of color and individuals that have been harmed most by the War on Drugs in the State of New York.\u201d<\/p>\n She stressed that the new legislation calls for a Social Equity Mentorship Program, to bring prohibition-impacted communities into the cultivation sector. \u201cThe temporary conditional licenses authorized by this bill will ultimately help realize the vision and goals of the MRTA.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite such verbiage, the advocates for an equity model in the Empire State have reason to be concerned. Big Bud is certainly poised to assume a dominant role in the market.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Cresco Labs, a Chicago-based cannabis company, announced March 23 that it\u2019s acquiring New York-based\u00a0Columbia Care\u00a0to form what will be the largest company in the US cannabis industry by revenue and the second largest in terms of retail footprint. As New York\u2019s\u00a0Gothamist<\/a>\u00a0notes in its coverage of the announcement, Florida-based\u00a0Trulieve\u00a0has 158 dispensaries, giving it the No.1 title for retail space.<\/p>\n The $2 billion deal will give Cresco a foothold in 17 states.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is how you turn brands like High Supply, Cresco and FloraCal into Miller High Life, Coca-Cola and Johnnie Walker Blue Label,\u201d Charlie Bachtell, Cresco\u2019s CEO, crowed to\u00a0Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cresco and Columbia Care, both publicly traded, already hold medical marijuana licenses in New York, and each has four dispensaries across the state. The two companies have already gobbled up valuable real estate in New York City ahead of the opening of what will certainly be the state\u2019s most lucrative adult-use market.\u00a0Cresco, operating under the brand\u00a0Sunnyside\u00a0in New York, plans to open its first adult-use retail outlet in Brooklyn\u2019s hipster-haunted neighborhood of Williamsburg, while Columbia Care has its flagship shop near Union Square and a second in Downtown Brooklyn. Columbia Care also holds a medical license in New Jersey, another state on the countdown to the first legal adult-use sales.\u00a0<\/p>\n A slew of other industry giants already have operations in New York state, and\u00a0Gothamist<\/a>\u00a0reports that \u201cbig names like the DIY-maven Martha Stewart, the Rockefeller family and Constellation Brands (the liquor giant that owns Corona and Svedka) will likely have a stake.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a long-anticipated crackdown seems to be imminent for the\u00a0unregulated \u201cgray market\u201d<\/a>\u00a0that has been thriving in New York City\u2014often Black and Latin legacy operators that have been setting up shop in storefronts or on tables set up in parks.<\/p>\n Washington Square, in the heart of Manhattan\u2019s Greenwich Village, has been the city\u2019s premier location. Sales of pre-rolls and edibles\u2014just barely disguised as promotional giveaways with a purchase of other merchandise, such as baseball caps with a cannabis-leaf logo\u2014have been tolerated there since last spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Captain Stephen Spataro, commander of the NYPD\u2019s local Sixth Precinct, now tells\u00a0The Village Sun<\/a>\u00a0that his officers are now taking a \u201czero tolerance\u201d approach to cannabis vending. Pointing to some unfortunate\u00a0instances of violence<\/a>\u00a0around the tables in the park, Spataro warned of the dangers of an unregulated market.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another story in\u00a0The Village Sun<\/a>\u00a0foresees an imminent end to the storefront \u201ccannabis clubs\u201d that are operating on a similar basis at a few locations around the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cInitially, there\u2019ll be very heavy civil fines\u2014$25,000 to $250,000,\u201d predicted East Village attorney Stanley Cohen. \u201cThen forfeiture of cars, houses and other licenses. You need licenses to open a store in New York. It might not be for six months or a year, but it\u2019s going to happen. They\u2019re serious about this shit,\u201d\u00a0Cohen said. <\/p>\n And it isn\u2019t just in the big city. Such stores are starting to proliferate in Upstate locales, too. In the college town of Ithaca, in the scenic Finger Lakes region, they\u2019re called \u201csticker stores\u201d\u2014because they ostensibly give away cannabis with purchase of a (very overpriced) decal sticker. But in February 2022, the city administration\u00a0issued<\/a>\u00a0a \u201cclarification that unlicensed cannabis sales remain illegal in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n And in February, the state Office of Cannabis Management announced that it had \u201csent letters ordering businesses suspected of illegally selling cannabis, including the practice of \u2018gifting,\u2019 to cease and desist those operations or risk the opportunity to get a license in the legal market as well as substantial fines and possible criminal penalties.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the dispute over the legality of cannabis operations on New York state\u2019s Native American lands. About a dozen cannabis retail outlets have opened on the\u00a0St. Regis Mohawk Reservation<\/a>, also known as Akwesasne, along the St. Lawrence River in the far north of the state. They\u2019re operating without any \u201csticker\u201d subterfuge\u2014but asserting their rights on grounds of indigenous sovereignty.<\/p>\n \u201cI think this is a relief valve for our visitors, our friends, our families,\u201d William Roger Jock, a partner in the reservation\u2019s\u00a0Good Leaf Dispensary<\/a>, enthused to the\u00a0Associated Press<\/a>\u00a0in March. \u201cWe\u2019ve been stepped on for so long and to have something like this happen, it\u2019s almost liberating.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Council adopted an adult-use ordinance in June 2021 that allows issuance of cannabis business licenses to tribal members. The council openly said in a prepared statement to the AP that \u201cthere\u2019s a short window of time for tribally licensed cannabis businesses to open ahead of other areas in New York state.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But some shops have opened without licenses from the tribal government. Jock and others say their operations are approved by the Longhouse, a traditional leadership structure on the reservation that serves as a kind of parallel government.\u00a0<\/p>\n The smaller operations approved by the Longhouse will soon face competition from a new \u201csuperstore\u201d called Budders, which is on track to open along the reservation\u2019s main strip, with a license from the \u201cofficial\u201d tribal government.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The Cayuga Nation, in New York\u2019s bucolic Finger Lakes region, also operates several retail shops along Cayuga Lake, and is now planning to branch out into cultivation.\u00a0<\/p>\n As\u00a0Syracuse.com<\/a>\u00a0reports, the Cayugas say they\u2019ll begin indoor grow operations in a 15,000-square-foot building under development on their Gakwiyo Garden property, south of the village of Seneca Falls.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But the Cayugas are at present bitterly divided between the \u201cofficial\u201d and \u201ctraditional\u201d tribal governments. And on New Year\u2019s Day this year, a retail cannabis outlet in Seneca Falls that had approval of the \u201ctraditional\u201d government was\u00a0shut down in a raid<\/a>\u00a0by the \u201cofficial\u201d government\u2019s Cayuga Nation Police Department.\u00a0<\/p>\n Further west, the Seneca Nation of Indians has established its own\u00a0Cannabis Department<\/a>, and is running retail outlets in and around its reservations at Allegany and Cattaraugus, with names like\u00a0Good Leaf\u00a0and\u00a0420 Rez Bud.<\/p>\n The good news is that it looks like the state government is staying out of it. Last September, The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0wrote a profile of the operations at Akwesasne stating the following: \u201cFor their part, the New York State authorities seem to be taking a hands-off approach to the early entrepreneurs on the St. Regis reservation, noting that such businesses are legal on federally recognized, sovereign tribal land.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In a February 2022 opinion piece for\u00a0amNY<\/a>, Stacey Webb, co-founder and chief equity officer of\u00a0The Pantheon Collective<\/a>,\u00a0an LGBTQiA+ majority-owned cannabis start-up in the Adirondack Mountains, took stock of New York\u2019s responsibilities as an example for the nation: \u201cAccording to the 2021 Census, a little more than 42 percent of the US population are members of the BIPOC [Black, indigenous and people of color] community, yet less than 3 percent of legal cannabis businesses reflect ownership by BIPOC individuals. This gap is far too wide and makes it glaringly obvious that existing plans for inclusion are currently insufficient.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Webb pointed out that \u201cof the 37 states who have some form of a legalized cannabis program (medical and\/or adult-use), only 13 of these states have rolled out some form of a social and economic equity program. This represents a mere 27 percent. Of those, only New York and Massachusetts have developed programs which specifically name the BIPOC community as a benefactor of these programs for inclusivity.\u201d<\/p>\n Voters in Montana\u00a0approved a cannabis legalization initiative<\/a>\u00a0in 2020, but there have been no provisions for equity. Of course, these two states are a study in contrasts. The\u00a0US Census<\/a>\u00a0says that\u00a0New York has a population of some 20 million, of which a combined 37% are Black or Latin\u2014the two communities most impacted by the oppressions of prohibition. Native Americans, another traditionally marginalized group, constitute but 1%.<\/p>\n According to the\u00a0US Census<\/a>,\u00a0Montana has just a little more than one million residents, of which some 4% are Latin and less than 1% Black. But Native Americans constitute 6.7% of Montana\u2019s population\u2014a far more significant share.<\/p>\n And in Montana, the law does include provisions that limit the participation of Indian tribes in the legal cannabis economy. One indigenous nation that wants to get in on cultivation is currently lobbying the statehouse to change the law.<\/p>\n The Crow Tribe, who have a large reservation just south of Billings, voted to enter the cannabis industry with its own tribal ordinance in April 2021. \u201cWe\u2019re moving forward. We\u2019re diversifying our economy throughout the tribe. Coal was the name of the game for the tribe for a while, but for good business we have to diversify within the reservation,\u201d tribal chairman Frank White Clay told the\u00a0Billings Gazette<\/a>. <\/p>\n The state regulations then being drawn up by the Legislature granted one cannabis business license to each tribal government, but the state\u2019s\u00a0eight recognized tribes<\/a>\u00a0have been slow to respond. This is because, in the words of the\u00a0Helena Independent Record<\/a>, \u201churdles emerged from the law\u2019s fine print.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Adult-use cannabis sales\u00a0topped $12.8 million<\/a>\u00a0just in their first month, January 2022. The following month, Crow Nation representatives testified before the state Economic Affairs Interim Committee in Helena.<\/p>\n \u201cThe intention is there to help the tribes, but the follow-through failed,\u201d White Clay told the committee.<\/p>\n While other cannabis businesses are free to expand their footprint throughout the state, licenses for tribal enterprises are far more restricted. Such enterprises are allowed to operate a single combined cultivation and retail site within 150 miles of the borders of the reservation in question.<\/p>\n Operating off-reservation is a means of dodging potential problems with the federal government, which still considers cannabis an illegal drug and asserts jurisdiction on the reservations of federally recognized tribes. The 150-mile limit also allows tribes to enter the market in more populous areas of the state. But it\u2019s still a limit not faced by other businesses. And it isn\u2019t the only one.<\/p>\n Some have already been addressed. House Bill 701, the legalization enabling law\u00a0passed by the statehouse<\/a>\u00a0in April 2021 and\u00a0signed<\/a>\u00a0by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte the following month, only allowed issuance of \u201cTier 1\u201d licenses to tribes\u2014the smallest cultivation capacity level. The law allowed general license holders\u2014not tribal ones\u2014to start at Tier 1 and scale up to expand capacity. In December 2021, the Economic Affairs Committee, with approval of the Department of Revenue\u2019s Cannabis Control Division, voted to reject that rule, and later approved a revised rule allowing tribes to similarly expand their capacity.<\/p>\n But Crow officials in their February 2022 testimony asked lawmakers to further revise the rules\u2014allowing tribal businesses to operate on the same terms as any other cannabis business. They also called for a provision allowing the state to enter into \u201ccompacts\u201d with tribal governments, allowing indigenous nations to operate a cannabis business on their own terms\u2014not the state rules. Such \u201ccompacts\u201d are already in place for tribal tobacco and alcohol businesses.<\/p>\n In his testimony, Crow Tribe secretary Levi Black Eagle noted that Interstate 90 and Highway 212 intersect at the heart of the reservation, and that most of traffic passes through in the summer tourist season.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we\u2019re unable to take advantage of an economic opportunity such as that, it\u2019d be wrong,\u201d he told lawmakers, according to the Independent Record.<\/p>\n New York and Montana alike can take timely action to assure that cannabis legalization lives up to its promises, for a more just post-prohibition world.<\/p>\n The post New York and Montana:\u00a0Contrasts in Cannabis Equity<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
New York and Montana, two states to have recently legalized cannabis, provide a study in contrasts in the question of equity. In New York, concrete steps are being taken to shape a market model that corrects the social injustices of prohibition and the War on Drugs. However, advocates are watchingContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,2462,1918,3466,208,81,97],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54462"}],"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\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54463,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54462\/revisions\/54463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}But Will She Walk the Walk?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Challenges for Cannabis on Native American Lands\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Bottlenecks in Big Sky Country\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: New York and Montana:\u00a0Contrasts in Cannabis Equity<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"