2.7 Million New Yorkers consume Marijuana at least once a month
It’s the Empire Baked.
Some 2.7 million New Yorkers enjoy marijuana at least once a month, state cannabis regulators revealed Wednesday, as they continue to push toward a robust, legal marketplace for the green goods.
“There is a large and established market,” said John Kagia, the state Office of Cannabis Management’s policy director at a meeting in Harlem.
The steadily rising use of cannabis represents nearly one-fifth of New York adults who use weed at least once a year, and mostly from illegal distributors, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.
“The hard work is just beginning as New York makes this transition from an unlicensed, unregulated market to a legal, regulated cannabis market,” Kagia said during his report to the Empire State’s cannabis control board.
New York legalized the use of recreational marijuana in 2021 — a move then-Gov. Cuomo hailed as “essential” to the state’s economic well-being.
So far, legitimate sales have been low, but promising: licensed cannabis dealers have sold $33 million in weed and edible products — including gummies, brownies, cookies, hard candies, capsules, dissolvable tablets and more — while sales jumped to an eye-popping $11 million for the month of June alone based on state revenue numbers.
Rollout of the state’s legal cannabis program has been slow, however, with just 20 licensed dispensaries and delivery outlets open for business. Forty more are in development, according to regulators.
Marijuana farmers throughout the state said they entered this growing season still stockpiling weed from last year because of not enough licensed stores.
But growers got a bit of good news Wednesday — customers will now be able to buy flowered products, gummy bears and other edibles at pop-up marijuana trade shows, concerts and festivals. But the won’t be allowed to smoke weed at the events.
The pop-up sales would be at venues or street events where the customers are predominantly age 21 and up — the legal age to buy weed, a source familiar with the plan said.
“Cannabis is becoming more and more acceptable — as it always should have been,” said Osbert Orduna, CEO of the Queens-based The Cannabis Place delivery service.
“The licensed cannabis industry made good progress today.”
New York is also looking to stamp out illegal weed shops — which have exploded to as many as 1,500 in the Big Apple alone.
The state Cannabis Management and Department of Taxation and Finance have been granted powers to issue fines of between $10,000 and $20,000 a day to stores illegally selling pot.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been undertaking his own efforts to snuff out these shops by helping to get them evicted from their buildings. And the NYPD filed four lawsuits against illegal weed shops in February.
Hochul warned unlicensed marijuana storefronts that the state’s “aggressive” new enforcement plan would continue — now that 37 new full-time staff members had been added to the department to aid in the crackdown.
“I want to send a message loud and clear across the state that if you’re operating illegally, you will be caught and you will be stopped,” she said. “It is just not worth it.”
