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This guest column is from Paula Collins, EA, Esq., a tax attorney dedicated to the cannabis industry, a co-founder of the NY Consortium of Cannabis Accountants, and an adjunct professor at Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law, where she teaches Cannabis Law and Policy. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of NY Cannabis Insider.
The essential questions – what problems are we really seeking to address with the open license period in New York cannabis?
Let’s start with social equity – can we solve disparate treatment to individuals and communities of economic and racial minorities through cannabis policy?
Without a doubt, social equity still forms a key lens through which our state views applicants. This is in no small part due to the dogged and persistent efforts of the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) and the Cannabis Control Board (CCB).
After two injunctions and a dramatically slower timeline than any of us ever envisioned, we might even call the obsession with social equity pathological, were it not for the fact that our Rockefeller laws of a generation ago cast the model for iron bars and several lifetimes of devastation to communities. We needed to move mountains to overcome that onerous period in our history, and OCM has been stalwart in this commitment. Bravo.
Accessibility is another essential question. Can we make medical and adult-use cannabis products available to consumers across the state in a safe but affordable market? So far, the state gets a thumbs down. Just ask a medical patient like Nikki Lawley, who relies on daily doses of cannabis to help her “connect the dots.”
Unless you are in lower Manhattan, you really don’t have access to a variety of adult-use retail dispensaries, and the medical dispensaries are … I don’t even know where the closest medical dispensary is from where I live. Huh. I just realized that.
Regulation and taxation – another essential question, and really the R and T in the MRTA.
OCM attorneys would argue that they are the pervasive regulators in the state since they have rules for every aspect of the supply chain. Or do they? As I walk the streets and travel the roads, it seems that about 99.420% of the weed that is sold and consumed eluded that supply chain.
Unlicensed cannabis is how the plant and its magical, mystical mellowness is still around after Nixon’s War on Drugs. And as more mature regulated markets illustrate, unlicensed sales of cannabis persist long after the state props up their own drug trafficking pot shops.
As for the T in the MRTA, we have improved with the Cannabis Growers Showcases. These are a whole lotta fun but a whole lotta work for the people involved. Kudos to each and every person who moved a box, set up a table, or hung up a sign to make these happen. You have given us hope. But the state’s predictions for taxation are going unmet, and we can’t pay our government’s bills with promises and predictions.
The essential questions persist: can we affect social equity while enhancing accessibility in a cannabis market that is regulated and taxed?