The New York Cannabis Agency says it is looking for illegal activity

New York, December 13 The New York Office of Cannabis Management, in charge of developing the regulation of this market in the state, assured this Tuesday that it was aware of the illegal sale activities that have proliferated in the Big Apple in recent months and has announced that they will start seeing results from his performance next year, as his facility grows.

The agency’s deputy director of legislative affairs, Tahlil McGough, said at a community forum organized by lawmaker Gale Brewer to address neighbors’ concerns about illegal businesses that have taken advantage of “gray areas” and the slow deployment of state law. regulating the recreational use of cannabis.

McGough revealed that the office received nearly 1,000 applications for operating licenses for retail dispensaries in September, but only 36 licenses have been announced so far – 28 for businesses and 8 for non-governmental organizations – and revealed that the goal across the state is to reach between 3,000 and 4,000 dispensaries in the future, which will take years.

Both the legislator and several members of the community have drawn attention to businesses that violate the law and agency regulations by selling unlicensed cannabis products, even to those under 21, in establishments such as tobacconists, neighborhood bodegas or specialized shops that sometimes have neon lights and advertising that includes graffiti and drawings.

Were also repeatedly mentioned the vans selling cannabis products that have been seen for months in the tourist areas of central Manhattan and that attract passers-by with their music and urban art painted on the outside, and which, according to some critics, pass through residential neighborhoods or near schools and places of worship.

“All these people didn’t wait for the regulations or read the law, they think that just because (recreational cannabis) has been legalized they have the right to sell it, which is not true,” said the official, who clarified that whether businesses that are not licensed or taxed can be prosecuted because they are not legal.

Of course, he underlined that when it comes to “applying the law” and persecuting them, arrests or prison sentences are not considered, but the closure of shops and vans and the seizure of illegal cannabis, which in large part “is trafficked between states, which constitutes a federal crime”, and that because it has not been tested it assumes “a health and safety problem”.

“The ultimate goal of the cannabis legalization issue was to ensure that money was raised and returned to those communities that had been disproportionately affected” by policies that have criminalized Black and Latino populations in particular for possession and licensing in the past. ‘use of marijuana “. so they get deceived” with this illegal activity, he added.

In this sense, he indicated that the agency has not existed for a long time and may “appear to do nothing”, but since February he has been collaborating with other agencies, obtaining information from places that violate the rules, investigating their activity and sending undercover agents , a task in which he encouraged neighbors to report places of concern. EFE extension

nqs/copy