I guess they didn’t see this coming.
The New York lawmakers who gave us legal weed are now wringing their hands over the enormous unintended consequence of their efforts: The seemingly unstoppable proliferation of illegal pot shops across New York, including in their own districts.
During a recent legislative hearing on the legal cannabis market, Democratic state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal ticked off the names and addresses of around a dozen illegal pot shops in his Manhattan district, the New York Post reported.
He complained that little was being done to stop them.
Here’s the money quote: “As much as this undermines the legal market,” Hoylman-Sigal said, “this is a public health issue, particularly for young people.”
As if a robust legal weed marketplace wouldn’t pose certain risks for young people as well?
Democratic state Sen. Liz Kruger, a leading proponent of legal weed, lamented the fact that her Upper East Side district has blocks with more than two illegal weed shops on them.
“What do we need to do?” she said at the hearing. “Because clearly whatever we did isn’t really working.”
What they did was nothing, actually.
Every state that legalized weed before New York has had to contend with black market weed dealers. Some of those black markets have grown stronger even with legal weed available.
But New York lawmakers didn’t heed the lesson. All they thought about was the revenue that would come pouring in from legal weed. They never stopped to think about how the legal marketplace would need to be policed in order to keep illegal sellers out.
They’re a little late to the party, because the enforcement ship may have sailed anyway.
At that same hearing, Chris Alexander, director of the state Office of Cannabis Management, said that $20,000-a-day fine leveled against illegal pot shops isn’t enough to curtail the black market, The City reported.
For illegal operators, particularly those with multiple shops across the city or state, the fine is “the cost of doing business at times,” Alexander said.
He said that he didn’t know how high the fines would have to be in order to fully deter the black market.
These are foreign cartels we’re dealing with in some instances. You think a $20,000 a day fine is going to deter them?
What a bad dream this whole process has been for all those entrepreneurs who wanted to get into the legal weed business.
Not only do many of them continue to wait out the state’s agonizingly slow rollout of the marketplace, but now they’ve seen cartels and other illegal weed dealers stomp all over their territory.
Even worse, entirely wiping out the black market seems like a very tall order indeed, meaning that the competition will remain even when licensed pot shops are up and running.
Remember, those illegal dealers won’t have to deal with any of the regulation, expense or taxation that the legal sellers will face. The legal shops will have to make sure that their weed is as good and as competitively priced as what’s available on the black market.
But given the reek of weed that’s become all too common in New York City, indoors and outdoors, morning, noon and night, weekday and weekend, it’s fair to ask whether we need a legal pot marketplace at all. The black market is already providing the service.
If New York Dems wanted to make marijuana use commonplace, they’ve more than succeeded. If they actually wanted a revenue-generating marketplace, they’ve failed miserably.
They should have seen it coming.
The toke’s on them as pro-weed NY lawmakers bemoan illegal pot shops (opinion)
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07.11.2023
I guess they didn’t see this coming.
The New York lawmakers who gave us legal weed are now wringing their hands over the enormous unintended consequence of their efforts: The seemingly unstoppable proliferation of illegal pot shops across New York, including in their own districts.
During a recent legislative hearing on the legal cannabis market, Democratic state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal ticked off the names and addresses of around a dozen illegal pot shops in his Manhattan district, the New York Post reported.
He complained that little was being done to stop them.
Here’s the money quote: “As much as this undermines the legal market,” Hoylman-Sigal said, “this is a public health issue, particularly for young people.”
As if a robust legal weed marketplace wouldn’t pose certain risks for young people as well?
Democratic state Sen. Liz Kruger, a leading........
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