Albany’s celebration of $1 billion in commercial marijuana sales earlier this year must have been music to Big Pot’s ears. “Let us celebrate the individuals, businesses, and communities in cannabis who drive our state’s economic engine,” exulted Felicia A. B. Reid, acting executive director of the state Office of Cannabis Management.
No one would expect state health commissioner James McDonald to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with, say, Altria or Philip Morris USA to celebrate the sale of tobacco products. But here was Reid, backing drugs known to cause addiction, IQ loss, psychosis, and schizophrenia, especially in young people.
Coming from someone whose core responsibility is to ensure that New York’s legal market protects public health and safety, Reid’s statement was alarming. If the Office of Cannabis Management is applauding industry profits, it raises questions about the rigor with which it is carrying out its regulatory duties.
The upbeat tone of the announcement obscured the facts about how New York’s legalization is going. State revenues from legal weed, for example, aren’t all they were cracked up to be. Between fiscal years 2023–24 and 2024–25, the money from taxes, fees, and fines amounts to less than one-tenth of 1 percent of New York’s massive $252 billion budget.
Proponents of the legal pot marketplace also note that 55 percent of retail sales are now from “non-flower products.” This should immediately raise alarms with legislators and regulators, however. Non-flower products––coming in forms like THC-laced candies, cookies, gummies, and vapes––are more potent and more attractive to kids. A recent analysis of the latest medical literature found that recreational marijuana laws were associated with an increase in marijuana use among young people ages of 12 and 17—hardly something to celebrate.
Dig deeper into the state’s own reporting and it’s clear that New York’s attempts to create a regulated “adult-use” market have failed. Cannabis-related poisonings have continued to rise since legalization. Between 2019 and 2022, the number of marijuana-related poison-control calls involving children increased fourfold. New York City public schools data show a 10 percent increase in drug-and-alcohol-related discipline from 2019 to 2023.
Those in charge have failed to acknowledge that the legal marketplace is worsening a drug and mental-health crisis. Their cheerleading is either willful blindness or a calculated omission meant to please investors.
Sadly, Governor Hochul, Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, State Senator Jeremy Cooney, and others have bought Big Pot’s big lie. New Yorkers should see through it for the con that it is.
Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
State officials trumpet $1 billion in marijuana sales while downplaying health risks, surging youth use, and meager tax revenues. Read More
