This post was originally published on this site.
Join NY Cannabis Insider for our next full-day conference on Sept. 21 at the Pearl Street Grill & Brewery in Buffalo. Tickets will sell out.
From concerns about HHS’ Schedule III recommendation, chatter about the prevalence of illegal shops and state legislators thinking about increasing oversight of the industry, it was another week with plenty of moving pieces in New York cannabis.
Let’s take a look at the stories NY Cannabis Insider covered last week:
First of all, we encourage anyone in or around Western New York (or willing to make the trip) to join us in Buffalo Sept. 21 for an all-day conference. We’ve been hosting events and publishing stories for nearly two years, but this is our first event in Buffalo, and we’re really excited!
Panels will feature candid discussions about what’s happening right now from several key stakeholder perspectives, such as cultivators, processors, retailers, politicians, attorneys, and medical operators.
On Thursday, we covered state Sen. Jeremy Cooney’s announcement that lawmakers will hold a fact-finding hearing on Oct. 30 to address the state’s troubled rollout of its legal cannabis industry.
During the Oct. 30 hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Cannabis, legislators will hear testimony from industry stakeholders, and question regulators about issues that have stymied New York’s legal marijuana launch, Cooney said. The hearing could inform future legislation.
Earlier in the week, we spoke with three cannabis-focused attorneys in New York about how the federal government’s possible reclassification of marijuana from a Schedule I substance to Schedule III might affect the Empire State’s legal market.
Each of the lawyers was kind enough to write us a blurb about what they thought of the move, and all said there will be positive and negative outcomes if rescheduling happens.
Paula Collins, a tax attorney dedicated to the cannabis industry, contributed a column in which she does some back-of-the-envelope math to figure out that there could be more than 36,000 illegal marijuana shops in New York State.
“The numbers do not include the independent weed dealers who do not have brick-and-mortar stores, nor does it include internet-based operations, such as delivery businesses,” Collins wrote about her finding.
Speaking of math; Jeff Jones, an AUCC based in the Finger Lakes, wrote a guest column that posits basic economics could destroy the equity agenda for New York’s legal weed market.
New York is “about to repeat the tragedy of California by handing large corporations the dual sabres of 1) supply and demand, and 2) cash flow is king,” Jones wrote. “As a result, New York’s small business and social and economic equity outcomes will be severely muted.”
Continuing our “NY’s women in cannabis” series, we ran a profile on Barbara Vaughn, the CEO and founder of Cannabicity, which aims to open as a dispensary in Schenectady.
We also added a new entry to our “People to know in NY cannabis” series: Louis Feuillatte, who works at MJstack, a free vendor-agnostic cannatech consulting service that pairs cultivators and retailers with the right tech partners.
Lastly, we posted attorney Jeffrey Hoffman’s latest Ask Me Anything segment, in which he answered questions about the Department of Health and Human Services’ recommendation that cannabis be reclassified as a Schedule III substance, CAURD-related lawsuits in litigation and more.
Have a great weekend everyone, we’ll be back with plenty more next week.