New York smells every day like an open-air pot den.
Regardless of zones or times, at the doors of a school or an office building, the smell of marijuana is one more sign of its urban identity.
But the legal cannabis market is trailing behind the smoke, between areas of gray.
Thanks to a State initiative, retail sales for recreational purposes and very specific characteristics have been approved: the first activity licenses have been granted to individuals previously convicted of possession, mostly Afro-Americans and Latinos, whose condition is intended to compensate for the so-called initiative official “equity”.
The State of New York legalized in March 2021 the possession of marijuana with a limit of 24 grams of concentrate per person.
But before, numerous offices or dispensaries already operated, not a few in traveling vans, in an alleged context
of
fait accompli that moved more than 2,000 million dollars a year, according to Bloomberg calculations.
Last week, the State Cannabis Control Board granted the first 36 provisional licences, distributed among 28 individuals and eight NGOs.
They aspired to one of the more than 900 applications submitted.
One of the conditions is that marijuana is grown in the State of New York, where more than 220 industrial plantations operate, and that large companies, some listed, do not enter the business for another three years to favor SMEs;
not even those that sell marijuana for therapeutic purposes.
From now on, the consumption of weed will be like that of alcohol or tobacco: something reserved for adults.
And, like that of craft beer or liquor stores, it will remain in the hands of individuals for the time being.
The first fully legal stores are scheduled to open by the end of the year.
But there are still loose ends in the legislation, a 282-page text in which the Board of Regulators drafts a unified regulation to expand the market and business opportunities.
The most frequently asked question is what will happen to existing stores, which theoretically limited their offer to cannabidiol (CBD), one of the active ingredients in cannabis.
Alex questions him daily.
He opened his business, Cannabis Culture, just a month ago in one of the busiest areas of the city.
The hustle and bustle at the counter on the eve of a holiday comforts him, but he fears that he does not guarantee viability.
“I pay 50,000 rent, I would need many more clients to start earning.
I am satisfied if I can cover expenses for the next six or eight months ”,
He explains at the counter, where there is a brochure explaining the effects of the different types of compound ("euphoric, sleepy, relaxing...") and the assortment of flavors that aromatize the grass.
“We sell all kinds of products with CBD, for smoking, oils, jelly beans, lollipops, incense…”, explains Alex, who describes his clientele as varied.
“There are young and old, men and women, people who buy CBD to sleep and others to get high;
many, for both things”.
On the walls are advertisements for Thanksgiving and Black Friday discounts.
explains Alex, who describes his clientele as varied.
“There are young and old, men and women, people who buy CBD to sleep and others to get high;
many, for both things”.
On the walls are advertisements for Thanksgiving and Black Friday discounts.
explains Alex, who describes his clientele as varied.
“There are young and old, men and women, people who buy CBD to sleep and others to get high;
many, for both things”.
On the walls are advertisements for Thanksgiving and Black Friday discounts.
The Cannabis Culture store in Manhattan. NurPhoto (Getty Images)
"Marijuana is healthier than McDonald's," reads a sign in the window of Smoker's World, a few blocks away.
The offer of weed is tinged with incomprehensible aromas: banana, peanut butter or strawberry ice cream, between a fortnight.
In the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, three customers, two in their twenties and a middle-aged woman, ventured into the store in just over a minute.
“You can buy whoever you want, as long as you are over 21 years old;
when in doubt, we ask for the card.
The customers are young and not so young, you would be surprised to know that most of them are older and that they buy to fall asleep”, explains Ahmed, one of the managers.
In a third store, which also sells cookies and biscuits based on maria, it is mandatory to show the card to the two gatekeepers even if they have gray hair.
“We opened three and a half years ago, more as a form of activism than as a business.
Then we have grown, until we have developed our own
merchandising
, so we are settled”, explains one of the sellers, who declines to identify himself.
The offer of aromas and flavors is overwhelming, like the neon lights that flash in the premises.
The three stores visited are spread out in a radius of a couple of blocks from Times Square, the zero kilometer of Manhattan.
The fact that the last mentioned store could open in 2019 demonstrates the legal vacuum that has surrounded marijuana, the least questioned drug among the panoply of prohibited substances.
It also implies the outpost of an increasingly broad political debate: with legalization in New York, there are already 21 States that have declared themselves in favour, 14 of them at the polls.
On November 8, coinciding with the midterm elections, voters in Missouri and Maryland approved in a referendum the free recreational use of the drug.
A decade ago, no American lived in a state that allowed smoking, vaping, or recreational use of marijuana.
Today, almost half the population does.
The legislative action follows in the wake of street usage, but still marks the biggest change in the country's drug policy in decades.
By
equating
marijuana with alcohol and tobacco, and not with the hardest drugs, the new legislation not only creates a new industry, it also rethinks the investment in resources and expenses such as police, until now focused on persecution.
There is something homeopathic about the licensing of ex-convicts.
As in the rest of the country, the prohibition in New York caused blacks and Latinos to suffer exponentially from the action of justice, victims of arbitrary arrests in the streets under an anti-drug program in force during the mayoralty of Michael Bloomberg (2002 -2013) called
Stop, Question and Frisk
, which penalized ethnic minority neighborhoods especially, despite consumption levels being similar everywhere.
Marijuana Day celebrations on April 20, 2021.VIEWpress (Corbis via Getty Images)
The "equity-based approach" that seeks to erase its past - the records have already been blurred thanks to the pardons granted by the Democratic Administration - is one of the keys to the new legislation.
Héctor, the older brother of Naiomy Guerrero, an art historian, suffered several arrests at risk during that period "in one of the most guarded neighborhoods in the Bronx", in which they lived.
“We applied as a family, my brother, my father and myself, and we have received an activity license.
We are delighted to be part of this historic moment and look forward to opening our dispensary in the near future,” explains Naiomy, an Afro-Latina.
“If the real goal [of regulation] is to be fair, who better than us?
Because we have suffered at the hands of the war on drugs.”
The regulations will prohibit the presence of shops in the vicinity of schools or nurseries;
Until now, there was no limit to legal businesses
,
whose mary comes from California or Colorado, not from the state.
Many other aspects, however, remain at the risk of further political… or judicial decisions: to begin with, because the possession of weed is still illegal under federal law, which makes it difficult for big banks to finance businesses.
In some states, such as South Dakota, a governor's injunction has even reversed voter support for the regulation.
About 68% of adults in the US support legalization, according to a recent Gallup poll.
Just two decades ago, 64% argued otherwise.
The change of opinion in public opinion caused a domino effect from 2012, with Colorado and Washington as the vanguard.
Three of the 21 states that have legalized marijuana are from the Republican tradition, including Missouri.
The most prominent of the Republicans, former president Donad Trump, defends that it continue to be prohibited, just like Joe Biden, unlike 80% of his voters.
The Democratic president, however, opposes jail terms for consumers and has pardoned thousands of people convicted under federal law.
Congress passed its first marijuana reform bill two weeks ago,
Bloomberg's random screening program was declared unconstitutional in 2013. Five years later, the state stopped arresting those who smoked marijuana on the streets and opened the way to authorize consumption.
Much of public opinion today considers the decades-long war on drugs a failure.
The smell of marijuana that spreads through New York is proof of this.
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