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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 7 has been edited for length and clarity. Hoffman’s next AMA is on June 14 at 4:20 p.m.
When should CAURDs who submitted their files to OCM expect to be presented to the Court?
Maybe never. The first batch of exceptions should have been just the folks that were “everything but open.” Like they literally have the sticker on the window but haven’t opened. Then as we get to the case-by-case folks, those that were very close to opening – like maybe their inspection was supposed to have been on or around the day of the first lawsuit hearing – they have a shot at an exception. Everyone else is going to need to wait for the gears of justice to grind.
Do you think any Long Island towns will opt in once the regulations are adopted?
I don’t think they will immediately. It probably won’t happen until they see how much tax dollars they’re missing out on. You don’t get re-elected by raising property taxes. So once cannabis tax revenue becomes a viable alternative to raising property taxes, then you will start seeing the “opt-back-ins.”
Is there any chance that the CCB/OCM will reconsider letting the ROs into the AU market at the end of 2023?
No. The OCM is tremendously underfunded. Their funding was supposed to come from tax revenue and licensing fees. So in the absence of that, the ROs want in, they got a big pot of money, and OCM needs money. $5M/store will go a long way. So that’s the train we’re on and it ain’t stopping.
What are your favorite words in the legal profession?
Including but not limited to. When you see them in front of the words “approved site plan,” it means that’s not all the judge wants to see.
Can you explain the term “codify” in simple terms?
Folks probably saw me holding the CODIFY CAURD sign at the recent CCB meeting. So we use many words for the rules our society creates. Law, legislation, regulation, and….code. Think of the phrase “code of conduct.” Or “it’s a code violation.” So we take the word code – the process of creating the code is codification, and the verb is codify. And so it’s taking a concept that we want, we want CAURD to be in law just like the AUCC and AUCP – and how did we get it there? We codify it, in this case by the legislature.
What are your picks for the World Series teams this year?
So I think clearly, the Braves are the best team in baseball. But does that matter here? So this is what I kind of liked about football. And that’s the silly football with the round ball. The table doesn’t lie, as we like to say. At the end of the season, if you got 20 teams in your league, you played 38 games, and whoever got the most points was the best team. And that’s who gets the title. The problem in American sports, baseball for example, is that we have a regular season where we play 162 games and we say “screw it, we’re going to do this playoff thing.” And whoever goes out there and performs in the playoffs wins. Remember when the Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl when the Patriots were undefeated. Were the Giants the best team that year? Not even close. But the Giants beat them in a Super Bowl, so they got the trophy. I do think the Braves are the best team in baseball. I do think they will represent the National League. For the American League, if I had to guess I’d probably say the Orioles.