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Thank you very much to everyone who participated and attended NY Cannabis Insider’s first-ever Buffalo event!
Our conference covered the state of affairs in New York’s cannabis industry during a tumultuous time. Although a lot of our time this week was spent planning the conference and putting it on, we still covered some big stories. Let’s take a look at the stories we covered:
As I mentioned, on Thursday we hosted a fantastic event in Buffalo, where The politics of legal weed, the state of affairs for licensees and legal issues in the industry were just a few of the topics covered on panels.
Held at Pearl Street Grill & Brewery, the event marked NY Cannabis Insider’s first conference in Buffalo. Panel discussions focused on cannabis industry issues statewide, but also examined the situation in Western New York, a region where retail has been stymied by two separate court injunctions.
The day before our Buffalo conference, NY Cannabis Insider Editor/Publisher Brad Racino published a major investigation, which found significant contamination of weed sold in licensed cannabis dispensaries.
Top-selling weed strains, available at licensed dispensaries from Western New York to Manhattan, contain microbial levels 10-250 times higher than what’s allowed under the state’s rules for medical cannabis, the investigation found. “The majority of these products should not have been allowed to be sold to consumers and may pose a serious health threat,” said Sarah Ahrens, founder and CEO of New Jersey cannabis testing company True Labs for Cannabis.
Earlier in the week, we ran a story about asset management firm Chicago Atlantic’s position as the sole private sector lender to New York’s $200 million public/private cannabis social equity fund – despite the fact that the firm holds at least 15 million shares for medical cannabis company Vireo Health.
While the Office Of Cannabis Management is holding businesses to stringent standards, the state appears to be giving itself a fair amount of latitude in its funding agreement with asset management firm Chicago Atlantic – the sole private lender to New York’s $200 million social equity fund for Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensaries (CAURDs).
Lastly, we posted attorney Jeffrey Hoffman’s latest Ask Me Anything segment, in which he answered questions about Registered Organizations expanding into New York’s adult-use market, the idea of codifying CAURD into law and more.
Have a great weekend everyone, we’ll be back with plenty more next week.