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At a hearing before the New York State Senate, Dr. Junella Chin, co-chair of the state’s Cannabis Advisory Board, discussed medical and adult-use access to marijuana, and the CAB’s role in regulating legal weed.
The CAB has been given a “Herculean task” of advising the OCM, Chin said during her short testimony.
Chin made her comments to legislators during a fact-finding hearing that Sen. Jeremy Cooney called to address the state’s troubled rollout of its legal cannabis industry.
Monday’s hearing 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.
During Monday’s marathon hearing – scheduled to last all day – Chin testified about her experience serving on the CAB. The board was created by the MRTA as a 13-person panel responsible for making policy recommendations and providing guidance on regulation.
Additionally, the MRTA tasks the advisory board with deciding how the state spends much of the tax revenue from its legal weed industry. As per the statute, 40% of the revenue from cannabis taxes and fees will pay for revitalization projects in communities most harmed by the War on Drugs.
During her testimony, Chin generally spoke positively about the Office of Cannabis Management and Cannabis Control Board, but noted a lack of resources provided to the CAB.
“It would be helpful if we had funding for a dedicated staff member from OCM to facilitate meetings, communication,” Chin said
Despite the CAB’s statutory mandate to advise the Office of Cannabis Management and Cannabis Control Board on regulatory policy, it didn’t hold its first until meeting June 30, 2022 – about eight months after the CCB began enacting policy.
Cannabis industry stakeholders have also criticized the makeup of CAB’s membership, which includes some people with questionable knowledge of the industry they’re advising.
Military veterans in New York’s industry have specifically called out the fact that, despite veterans being specifically included in the MRTA as a social equity category, there are no veterans on the CAB.
The full board has only met six times in nearly a year-and-a-half, compared with at least 16 CCB meetings held during the same time period. The CAB appears to have had little-to-no input on hundreds of pages of regulations the CCB approved in September.
At the last CAB meeting in September, Chair Joseph Belluck said the CCB hadn’t yet reached out to him or other members, and noted that the control board recently passed the regulations without consulting or seeking advice from the advisory board.
Belluck also said the group needs a staff and budget to function properly, and noted the board hasn’t been as involved with the state’s legal weed rollout as the cannabis law prescribes.
During the hearing on Monday, Sen. John Mannion asked Chin if the OCM has worked to address any CAB concerns or sought input from the board. Chin said CAB members sought information about accidental ingestion of edibles by children, and OCM staff worked to provide it to “help us connect the dots.”
When Mannion pressed Chin on what specific policy matters the CAB has advised OCM on, Chin said at CAB’s last meeting they discussed making recommendations for how to spend the community reinvestment fund.
“So, we did have those discussions, and we’re going to come back to them with recommendations,” Chin said.
Sen. James Skoufis asked Chin whether her board had suggested things to the OCM and CCB that were ignored. Chin said regulators ignoring advice from CAB isn’t necessarily the problem.
“What we would love is just more meetings,” Chin said. “More face time with the CCB and more face time with the OCM.”