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Making a buck as a New York cannabis farmer has been difficult, to say the least. And the long wait that many farmers have faced in transitioning from conditional to full licensure has not made life any easier.
Nearly 40% of the state’s 279 original licensed cultivators have yet to transition to permanent licenses, according to the state Cannabis Farmer’s Alliance.
Some farmers have simply lost faith in New York’s Office of Cannabis Management and haven’t bothered to apply, while a sizable number are stuck in the queue, waiting months and months for OCM to act on their applications.
After three years of being able to only grow cannabis and minimally process their flower, these farmers are operating in “legal limbo,” says Matt Leonardo, a cannabis attorney with the Albany firm Hinman Straub.
“Some believe that this is because OCM has prioritized retail locations over the transition of cultivators,” Leonardo said.
Earlier this year, OCM extended the authority of Adult-Use Conditional Cultivator licensees to operate through the fall of 2024.
And recently, OCM extended their conditional licenses into 2025, with no set expiration date given.
One of those who have been waiting in line for months for full licensure is Tom Szulist, a former industrial engineer and owner of Innocence Cannabis, located in Barker, just north of Buffalo.
Szulist first acquired his conditional cultivator license in June 2022.
He filed an application for permanent licensure in November 2023 and was notified in March 2024 that all his paperwork was complete and in order.
But six months later, he’s still waiting for approval from OCM – and it’s really gummed up the works.
“It’s ridiculous and total bullshit,” he told NY Cannabis Insider. “How can they expect people to do business like this … in the normal business world you’d expect a one-week turnaround.”
Szulist pointed out that he produced bumper cannabis crops in 2022 and 2023 (2,800 pounds of flower in 2022 alone), but was then left holding the bag with the state’s snail-like rollout of retail dispensaries.
In light of that, he said he expected an “expedited” process so he could operate a micro business selling directly to the public.
But the opposite occurred.
“It’s just brutal,” he said.
The last thing he’s heard from OCM, Szulist said, was that his application was being held up for a “background check,” which he labeled “absurd.”
CJ Segal-Isaacson, CEO of Growing Renaissance, a woman-owned company located in Madison County, just south of Syracuse, believes that OCM is trying to “reform,” but getting full licensure so that she can start a micro business has been a bit of an ordeal.
She received her conditional cultivator license on Aug. 15, 2022, and applied for permanent licensure in December 2023.
But nothing was done with it until recently when she finally got through to someone at OCM who said her application “hadn’t been looked at since April.”
The staff person apologized for it “falling through the cracks.”
Unfortunately, that inaction has “horribly” affected her business, she said. “Our main investor, who is interested in helping us expand” was adamant about having a new license in hand.
She’s managed to continue paying her workers and raise a “very good” cannabis crop, she said, but the protracted process has been “unbelievably damaging to our business.”
What’s even more disappointing, she told NY Cannabis Insider, is that the original conditional cultivator licensees were advised by OCM that because they faced license expirations, they would have their applications fast-tracked once the application window for permanent status opened in December 2023.
But, as it turned out, she said, many of the new applicants, who had not raised cannabis before, were given priority status by OCM.
A founding member of CFA, Segal-Isaacson added that she did feel OCM had turned over a new leaf and was honestly trying to “reform” itself.
And Leonardo said that four years into legalization, while “frustration, especially on the supply side, has been mounting … the new leadership [at OCM] has done a really good job of identifying and trying to fix the assorted problems of the industry.”
But, he added, “they have inherited a number of legacy problems that aren’t going to be solved overnight.”
OCM did not offer an immediate response to a request for comment.