This post was originally published on this site.
Join NY Cannabis Insider for our next full-day conference on Nov. 16 at the Sonesta White Plains.
Representatives from New York’s medical cannabis companies testified this evening to a NYS Senate subcommittee about the role of medical operators in the nascent adult-use marketplace and the fading promise of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act.
Bryan Murray, executive VP of government relations at Acreage Holdings, told legislators:
“The promise of the MRTA that you, the legislature, envisioned – capturing the illicit market, raising billions in tax revenue, investing in communities harmed by the War on Drugs, protecting and expanding the medical program and its patients, strengthening New York’s agricultural market, and ensuring participation in the industry by social equity applicants – continues to go unfulfilled.”
Sen. Jeremy Cooney organized Monday’s fact-finding hearing to address the state’s troubled rollout of its legal cannabis industry.
The bipartisan committee included Senators Cooney, Liz Krueger, Michelle Hinchey, James Skoufis, George Borrello, Pamela Helming, Nathalia Fernandez, and five others. It comes amid cascading problems in the Empire State’s legal cannabis industry – which have left hundreds of farmers with two harvests’ worth of cannabis but few retail outlets to which they can sell their products, and hundreds of retail licensees unable to open their doors due to a court injunction stemming from a predictable lawsuit.
It also comes as current licensees worry that well-funded medical operators are primed to swoop into the adult-use market at a time when the state’s licensed cultivators, processors and retailers are most vulnerable: facing a stalled rollout, injunctions, and an ever-growing unlicensed market.
Murray was joined by Adam Goers, senior VP of corporate affairs at Columbia Care; and Katie Neer, Of Counsel at Dickinson & Avella and counsel to the Medical Cannabis Industry Association. The trio addressed concerns about medical companies dominating the market.
If registered organizations choose to become vertically integrated on the adult-use side, Neer said, they have to pay a $20 million license fee and can only co-locate three of their eight dispensaries.
“That co-location was never intended for them to dominate the market,” Neer said. “Fully implemented, that will be like 2% of the dispensaries statewide. It was always about protecting the sustainability of the medical market.”
Goers from Columbia Care also repeated a complaint heard throughout the day among all industry stakeholders, from retailers to processors to farmers – the lack of communication from the OCM.
“In recent weeks, we’re somewhat optimistic that we’ve been given some engagement,” Goers said. But more often than not, they’re told by OCM that the agency is “just too overwhelmed even to share” details, “which makes it ever more frustrating.”
Senator Gustavo Rivera asked Murray, Goers and Neer if they agreed with the social equity goals of the MRTA, and if they believed equity entrepreneurs should be prioritized. All said yes.
Neer added that the $20 million fee charged to registered organizations for an adult-use license is supposed to go toward OCM equity programs – “a hefty fee for that for the privilege of being vertically integrated,” she said.