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Jeffrey Hoffman is a New York City-based attorney who hosts “Ask Me Anything about Cannabis Legalization in New York” each week on LinkedIn. Hoffman and NY Cannabis Insider have partnered to bring those sessions into print in a Q&A format.
Hoffman’s practice focuses on cannabis industry clients, including licensees in the adult-use market, practitioners in the medical cannabis space, and cannabis-adjacent product and service providers.
He has a particular interest in social and economic equity cannabis license applicants, and he also informs and assists those convicted of cannabis offenses in getting such convictions expunged from their record. He can be reached at info@420jurist.com.
The following AMA from June 28 has been edited for length and clarity.
What happened with the farmers’ markets?
So it does seem that for a while there was a bit of a furtive attempt to try to deal with the backlog of unsold product from the first harvest here in New York, and that maybe those markets would be one possible solution. But now it looks like they’re a no go and the only option that cleared the legislature was to allow wholesaling to the tribal nations.
Did the governor really say padlocks on doors and go after landlords?
Indeed she did at her press conference in Brooklyn. Padlock the doors, six figure fines to the landlords, and then take their buildings. I’ve been talking about this for a while now – Brad Racino and I went and looked at some of the transcripts from my past shows and I do believe it was last summer when we started talking about this stuff. So let’s get on it.
When are the next round of licenses going to be issued?
The next round of licenses will be issued at the next Cannabis Control Board meeting which may come in July. There are 49 CAURD licenses, not including any of the nonprofits, that they haven’t given out.
What are your thoughts about the medicinal market in New York State? Where is it headed? And are there any benefits for patients moving forward?
There are still numerous challenges for medical card holders. There are not enough dispensary locations and most of them are in NYC. We need to pass the insurance bill which will allow insurance companies in the state of New York to pay for medical cannabis and require the state-funded insurance entities to do so. Grant more medical licenses – open it up to more entities than just the large ROs.
Maybe make a provision for folks that don’t care about getting the adult-use additional license, we’re going to have lower licensing fees and an easier path to do it for standalone medical so that folks will open medical dispensaries closer to their patients. Also – for the doctors, we need to require them, before their next licensing period, to take a CME about cannabis and the endocannabinoid system.
Why are you calling weed ‘drugs’ still?
A substance intended to affect the structure or any function of the body is a drug. The FDA doesn’t include food, but I do. Oxygen is a drug. Everyone on planet Earth is addicted to it. Alcohol is a drug. Cannabis is a drug. Amoxicillin is a drug. Some drugs are good for you and some drugs are bad for you. And the reason I do this is because we have to get rid of the associated stigma – if we use these words everywhere they are applicable, we normalize the practice.