New York’s Weed Nightmare
When former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo faced sexual harassment allegations that threatened to end his career, he made a last-ditch effort to curry favor with the voters: He legalized weed. Maybe he hoped New Yorkers would be too stoned to remember the accusations that he had groped aides or asked female staffers to play strip poker with him.
New York’s progressive legislators had been crafting a recreational marijuana bill since 2018, but the version that passed was rammed through as Cuomo fought for political survival. The bill wasn’t just about legalizing cannabis; it was about righting historic wrongs by prioritizing licenses for people disproportionately impacted by prohibition. But in practice, the legislation has created a bureaucratic disaster that’s failed both business owners and consumers.
Jonathan Elfand spent a decade in prison for growing and selling weed—a conviction that, under New York’s new laws, should have given him priority in obtaining a legal dispensary license. Instead, he found himself stuck in bureaucratic limbo, with state regulators refusing to give him a license.
So Elfand did what any guy ballsy enough to run an illegal weed operation in the 1980s would do: He opened up anyway—and New York’s authorities responded with aggressive raids, trying to force the closure of his shops.
He wasn’t alone. While the state stalled on issuing legal licenses, thousands of gray-market dispensaries popped up, filling the void. Instead of facilitating a smooth transition to a regulated market, New York cracked down.
Unlike other states that simply legalized weed and let businesses flourish, New York took a heavy-handed, social justice–driven approach. Regulators created criteria that would offer priority licenses to women, minorities, veterans, and those from communities that had been “disproportionately impacted” by prohibition.
Even though Elfand had served a decade in prison for weed-related charges, that wasn’t enough to guarantee a license. Instead, bureaucrats picked winners and losers, leaving enterprising business owners like Elfand out in the cold.
Shouldn’t regulators let pretty much anyone open up, and allow customers to decide who they want to patronize?
But the Empire State isn’t the only one that’s terribly mismanaged legalization. California, with its overregulation and sky-high taxes, has also st
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