(upbeat music plays) - Welcome to this special edition of New York Now.

I'm Alexis Young.

On this week's show, we'll be discussing New York State's cannabis plan for a legal adult use industry.

- [Speaker 1] Today the Senate majority will cancel legislations.

- [Speaker 2] I'll fight like hell for you every single day.

Like I've always done and always will.

(indistinct voices) - First came love adult use conditional cultivation licenses then came marriage, adult use processor licenses and now conditional adult use retail dispensary or card licenses are cruising in the carriage.

The card program and other conditional licenses are designed so farmers, processors, and retailers from communities targeted during the war on drugs and other small business owners from underserved populations can get a piece of the infused pie first.

We sat down with Damian Fagon, the Social and Equity Officer at the Office of Cannabis Management, or the OCM, to discuss the card program and other initiatives that are setting New York state's cannabis industry apart from all the rest.

Damian, thank you so much for sitting down with us today.

- Absolutely.

Thanks for having me.

- So New York state's cannabis industry is taking a different approach than some of the other states in the nation.

The market's infrastructure makes it more difficult for bigger, more well-funded companies to monopolize the industry, the adult use industry.

Can you explain the characteristics of the market infrastructure that makes it possible to bar these monopolies?

If the infrastructure isn't benefiting these bigger companies, who is it benefiting?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So, you know, we took a lot of inspiration from our alcohol industry.

So, you know, our craft beer industry in New York, our wine industry.

We also looked around the country, other legal markets and we were most impressed with Washington State which has the only two-tier system in the country besides us now.

And so that is for folks to understand.

They separate the retailer from, the retailer from the supplier.

Suppliers can't control what retailers sell.

In other states, you know, that division does not exist.

And so well-funded suppliers will pay retailers to sell only their product.

And you know, we're looking at who's had access to these opportunities in other states.

And it's not Black and brown communities it's not small entrepreneurs, it's not immigrants.

And I think we're losing out on a lot of brand possibilities, a lot of marketing possibilities, a lot of product possibilities by excluding those groups.

And so when we were designing this regulatory architecture, we were primarily intending it to benefit small business access.

So if you want to start a mom and pop, if you've got a brand idea, if you've got some innovation in the cannabis space and you want to give it a shot, you don't need $10 million you might need $50,000, you might need a hundred thousand.

And so we just try to lower those barriers, those financial barriers as much as possible to give everyone a level shot on top of that, you know, two-tier restriction, there's a horizontal restriction.

You can't own multiple licenses.

In other states, you know, you can just start throwing your dispensaries all over the state and consolidate it overnight.

What we did is, you know, we limited the amount you can expand horizontally across your tier to allow for a lot of different players access to the market.

And so we're gonna see thousands of businesses operating independently across the supply chain in New York.

- So not only is the market set up to incubate these small businesses like you were just explaining, but the seating opportunity initiative and from my understanding will help meet some of the equity and justice goals from the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act.

Can you talk about what those goals and initiatives are and how the two-tier market supports those initiatives and goals?

- Yeah.

So the goal, you know, the guiding light of the MRTA is putting those most harmed by cannabis prohibition first and foremost.

And ensuring that 50% of the licenses that we, you know, give out over the next few years go to minority and women owned businesses, service disabled veterans, distressed farmers.

And so the Seeding Opportunity Initiative captured a lot of those groups in this first year in this conditional program, you know a lot of distressed farms upstate.

And then obviously, you know our conditional adult use retail dispensary you know, license, which is for those individuals who had marijuana related convictions.

And so we started our industry with family farms and those folks to do retail first because it's the right thing to do.

It also puts, you know, the consumer first because, you know, this allows for a lot of participation in the industry to create something that's uniquely New York.

I think that, you know, when we look at other cannabis industries, New York is too special to just replicate what's been done in other states.

We have to put our own spin on this.

We have to put our own culture into this.

And by prioritizing those family farms upstate and those folks in the city who had those setbacks with cannabis prohibition, you know, we're doing that.

And so, you know, I think having the industry start with them is a huge, you know, ethical, moral win.

It honors the MRTA, but they also get the first shot, the first mover's advantage in the market.

So where they put their dispensaries up, where they set their brands up, they'll have that advantage over other competitors that are gonna be entering our market soon.

- So the conditional licensees, like you were saying they have that first advantage in the market.

So looking down the road a little bit when non-conditional licenses enter the market is there a concern that the card licenses will get lost in the shuffle and some of those ethical and moral wins that you were talking about will be diminished?

- Yeah, well, I don't think so because of those two-tier restrictions, the horizontal restrictions.

It's a very level playing field in terms of competition.

The more money you have, you cannot beat out your competitors by being a loss leader or, you know just consolidating quickly and taking advantage of people.

There's a lot of protections, antitrust protections in our regulations that protect all these small businesses and give them a fair shot at competing.

The second thing I'll say is that, you know the prioritization of people with marijuana arrest it doesn't stop with card.

You know, the MRTA gives us full authority and a mandate to continue prioritizing those communities who had marijuana related convictions for future licensees, licenses, including dispensaries.

So, you know, if you look at how many liquor stores are across the state of New York, you're talking about 3000.

We may need 2000 cannabis dispensaries over the next three to five years, all over the state.

50% of those could also go to people from communities disproportionately impacted and people with marijuana related convictions.

And so we're continuing that justice work going forward.

- This next question is a bit of a lengthy one, so bear with me.

But as New York creates the socially equitable policies of its cannabis industry, the cultivator and processor licenses were first introduced and then conditional adult use retail dispensary license have entered the fold.

Card applicants must have lived in communities targeted by the war on drugs, had felony cannabis convictions, and at least 10% ownership of a profitable business for the last two years.

From my perspective, that seems like, you know, a steep mountain to climb.

But in prepping for this interview and speaking with card applicants, y'all both seem to express a decent amount of hope around these policies.

So my question is, do, are these policies being well implemented?

I know you said in a previous interview that the language in the MRTA is fine and dandy, but if it doesn't get implemented well then you're kind of... Yeah.

- Oh, no.

Yeah, the devil's in the details with implementation, you know, and we're all cognizant of that.

You know, Chris Alexander, our executive director played a huge role in writing that bill, which is why he's in the seat that he's in now, because he wants to honor the work that went into passing that legislation, the work that Black legislators in Albany, the sacrifices they made to make sure that we had equity first, to make sure we had 40% reinvestment.

And so all the work we do is to honor that.

And I think sometimes people are surprised like, wow they're really doing this.

Like, did you read the MRTA?

Like, we're doing what we've been, we're mandated to do.

And so, yeah, I think that the work going forward will continue to look like that.

It'll open the doors up to a lot of out-of-state players as well.

You know, we have a huge demand for cannabis in New York.

We have a lot of consumers, a mature and sophisticated market here in New York City, and we're gonna, it's gonna take a lot of sophisticated operators to provide that cannabis.

And so as we go forward, you know, our eyes are always on the fundamental, you know, restoring the harm foundation of the MRTA, but also on building a sustainable and competitive industry that consumers actually benefit from, that they can actually get safe and tested product.

- Well, Damian, thank you so much for sitting down with us again today.

This has truly been an illuminating discussion.

- Thank you.

- Between the two tier market infrastructure and the seating opportunity initiative big well-funded companies will not be able to enter the cannabis industry without being one of the 10 previously licensed medical marijuana operators.

But according to SAM, smarter approaches to marijuana, OCMs equity and anti-monopoly policies might not be enough to prevent big cannabis or an industry that can become as predatory and powerful as big pharma or big tobacco.

For more on that, I spoke with Will Jones, SAM's Director of Community Engagement and Outreach.

What is SAM's understanding or SAM's stance of how New York state is ushering in retailers and dispensaries?

- Yeah, so with so many of these things when it comes to marijuana commercialization, legalization, I say they're wonderful ideas, you know, and it's great concepts when we look at how it's played out in say, like, Illinois which when they were going through legalization, they said that they had the most equity centric, you know while I was in the nation, that was their big talking point.

That was the whole campaign.

You look a year later in Chicago, there weren't even there wasn't even a single business owned by entrepreneurs of color in Chicago.

- When you are discussing things like cannabis other substances come up as well as substance use disorder and harm reduction is making its way into the mainstream, though, for folks who have been dealing in outreach with HIV AIDS, and who have been in the fight against substance use disorder for decades now, they are, you know, now seeing governmental policies that encourage harm reduction.

What is SAM's stance on harm reduction?

- [Will] So, yeah, and we're very specific.

Our organization is focused on marijuana policies.

So I wanna be clear, because harm reduction, you know has brings up a lot of different policies for different drugs.

And so we are focused specifically on the marijuana issue.

And to that point, you know, I think when we look again at a place like Portugal, right?

There is no big commercial industry that is profiting off of cannabis being decriminalized there, right?

The people use it, there's free, it's destigmatized, people are able to get treatment, people are funneled in certain instances where there is problematic use, there are, you know different channels where they are guided to, if that's an issue as well.

But it's, you know, the stigma is gone and people can see treatment.

It's much more of a health issue treated that way there.

I, you know, see no reason why we can't have a similar approach.

I'm not saying it should be exactly like Portugal.

- [Alexis] There are some policies in the MRTA that block marketing to kids doing what Juul did, you know, targeting teenagers.

You can't use cartoon bubble lettering, certain bright colors, things like that.

They reduce the risk of being, you know, things being attractive to kids.

But SAM doesn't feel like that goes far enough.

Can you speak more about that?

- So we actually have work and are working in states where legalization has happened to for the exact same thing.

We're actually working on the federal level to introduce stiffer penalties for businesses that have things that are attractive to kids.

The reality is though, once it's legal, it's always gonna be a back and forth battle and you've got billions of dollars on one side and then got public health and, you know, local people working in their community and prevention on the other side.

And so it's like, it sounds great, but then when we look at how this is played out in every other thing, talk about the lottery, talk about Juul, talk about opioids, you know we see it unfortunately that public health gets the short end of the stick.

Our perspective is not to control what an individual does when we're very big on this at SAM.

It's not to say you can or can't use cannabis as an individual, but we will say business, no, we do not think that you guys should be selling it.

And to us, that's two different categories.

- Well, thanks again so much, Will.

I've really enjoyed speaking with you today.

- Thanks for having me, Alexis.

And I really enjoyed the conversation.

- Smarter approaches to marijuana is against any business profiting off of adult use cannabis.

Yet the literal mom and pop owners of Claudine Field apothecary, Jasmine Burham and King Aswad returned to the land and their agricultural roots before they were interested in growing hemp.

But after New York State chartered a pathway for farmers or cultivators involvement in a legalized cannabis industry they prepared to add the cash crop to their Claudine Fields.

- Welcome to Claudine Field apothecary here in the Berkshire's.

And welcome to our space.

- King Aswad and Jasmine Burham processed this year's cannabis harvest.

They were awarded their adult use cultivator and a processor license in May, just seven years after leaving Bedstuy to return to their homesteading herbalist roots.

After growing their own food and raising honeybees, the couple branched out to hemp through New York State's industrial carbon sequestration and regenerative agriculture research program, making them eligible for the Seeding Opportunity Initiative three years later.

- And we're coming from a very grassroots community centered wellness focused perspective.

And it's really starting from the ethos of our small family farm.

And we're hoping to grow into a large company with 150 employees.

And we're hoping to, you know, really provide security, stability, and a workplace of dignity and determination, self-determination for people within our community.

There is a license coming on board.

We expect for the applications to open maybe next year for a particular type of license called the Micro Business License.

The micro business license would allow us to cultivate a limited canopy of cannabis, but also process, manufacture, distribute, and retail our own product.

It's similar to like a farm brewery model or a winery model where the cultivator is allowed to bring their product to directly to the market.

In the case of New York, what's proposed is that we could have a dispensary under a micro-business license, but we could not sell other farms' or other cultivators' products.

We could only sell our own products.

As a micro-business licensee, we would also be able to distribute our brand to other dispensaries so we could distribute to all the other dispensaries and have our own headquarters where we sell our own product.

- When Burman and Aswad left Brooklyn, the city slickers didn't have driver's licenses.

They started their farm as well as their young family the same year.

And as the pair graduated from water buckets to irrigation systems their children or little herbalists were empowered to engage with the plant kingdom but protected from hemp and cannabis canopies.

- [Jasmine] We don't want all the trichomes rubbing off on their hands.

It's also bitter and spicy and it will burn the eyes, the oil, the resins from the plant.

So primarily we keep them away for that reason.

And, you know, from, you know, our perspective, just like if we were to cultivate cayenne pepper, you know, we don't want the children touching the cayenne pepper either, (laughs) you know?

We really direct them to other plants that they, you know, play with and make medicine with for the, for us it's not a big stigma, it's just, it's a part of our life and it's a part of their environment for sure.

And we really try not to weigh it down with extra stigma.

We don't really wanna make them more curious about it.

(laughs) I wouldn't leave a bottle of Robitussin within reach of my child.

I wouldn't leave a tray of cannabis within reach of my child either.

(laughs) - We need to know our plants more, and that's the era that we need to be moving back into.

So I support anyone who wants to educate their children.

I, you know, I, like Jasmine said, we all the time when the children at, what is that Daddy?

It's a plant, right?

I start with that and then I can start talking about the qualities of it.

And my daughter asks the difference between the plants that we're growing now and the plants that we were growing before.

And I think my answer was, this one has to have more security around it.

(laughs) More people want this one for the recreational purpose.

More people want to play around with it versus CBD.

- Claudine Field Apothecary's commitment to their family and community-based grassroots aligned with some of the benefits of the Seeding Opportunity Initiative that claims to be the first statewide cannabis industry policy with infrastructure supporting BIPOC, women, veteran, and legacy market entrepreneurship, endeavoring to rectify injustices during the war on drugs.

Yet Burham and Aswad only know one other Black-owned farm awarded an adult use cultivators license.

The cannabis cultivators wanted to see more of themselves in the industry and created the Institute of Afrofuturist Ecology to Burham and Aswad... - People who were directly impacted by the war on drugs.

- Yeah, I was warming up to that.

- Need come and feel this energy, need to come and feel this freedom.

Need to come and see, you know, and recognize that this is a moment.

You know, we have a long history of challenges and with cash crops, you know, exploitation and extraction and this is a cash crop.

You know, for us as farmers, we will always grow food.

We are committed to growing food for our community.

We will always grow food, we will always grow medicinal herbs.

We will not abandon that to, and replace all of the vegetables in our farm with cannabis.

- [King] No monocropping.

- [Jasmine] No, we don't believe in monocropping.

- [King] I think farming is the new hip hop and I think that it is a new movement that's happening and it is time for our people to get back to the land and get back to ourselves with our hands in the soil.

- [Alexis] In the meantime, Jasmine Burham and King Aswad will keep spending most their lives living in a growers paradise.

While Jasmine Burham and King Aswad benefited from social equity licensee programs, the Cannabis Workforce Initiative is working to help broaden that social equity status beyond licensees to folks applying to the jobs the adult use cannabis industry will create.

The Marijuana Taxation and Regulation Act has set a goal that would mean half of the licenses for retail dispensaries would be held by social and economic equity applicants, folks who've been impacted by the War on Drugs.

The Cannabis Workforce Initiative is a collaboration born from the Work Development Institute and Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

The mission is to fill New York state's adult use cannabis industry workforce with social equity hires as well.

Program manager Sara Edwards and project manager David Serrano feel that learning opportunities provided by CWI will result in certified employees who will create an equitable, sophisticated workforce while inspiring generational wealth.

- There are a number of modules that we're deploying.

Each module covers a very specific area of the industry supply chain as well as the ancillary industry.

And the goal is to give folks an idea of what are all of these careers?

What are all of these jobs?

What are people wearing?

What are they doing?

What are they, you know, what do they do before they come to work to get ready for the day?

And so, you know, we're covering, you know, direct supply chain jobs to- - [Sara] Create some general, excuse me, generational wealth, you need these jobs to be good jobs.

They need to be good paying jobs.

People need to be in, you know, diverse and inclusive workplaces.

- [Alexis] Increasing awareness around the existence of these jobs in the first place, as well as rights these employees are entitled to and what employers are required to do is only a portion of their goals.

Some of the others include making sure program participants know that- - MRTA mandates an automatic expungement of a large number of cannabis related charges but people don't know that it's happening.

They don't know what they need to do to confirm.

They don't, they're not notified that it's happened.

They don't know what it means in terms of applying for a job.

So we wanna make sure that people are kind of armed with that knowledge to like know how to go about getting it done and know, you know, what it means for their, you know, job applications.

- [Alexis] If you've lived in a community targeted by cannabis prohibition, entered the legacy market, or you've been incarcerated for participating in the legacy market, CWI's website is... - [David] Cannabisworkforce.org.

There's a form on there.

You know, they can put their name and they're, you know, there's request types and if they're an employer looking for assistance there's a request type just for them.

And, you know, we're happy to take all of the inquiries we can get.

- As their project manager said, the Cannabis Workforce Initiative is helping usher equity in every level of the workplace.

Here's Damian Fagon again on where he hopes a focus on equity and innovation will take New York State's cannabis industry.

Okay, so Damian looking maybe three years, five years into the implementation and rollout to when consumers in across New York State can actually get their hands on adult use marijuana.

What do you see for the industry?

- I see, you know, an example that the rest of the country could follow.

I see a dynamic, thriving competitive landscape that is diverse and representative of the communities that they operate in.

And then they're gonna be doing things with cannabis that haven't been done in other states.

You know, we have a lot of innovations to come in terms of onsite consumption.

We want licenses for events, for movies, for museums.

We want really innovative ways, new ways for consumers to interact with this incredible plant.

And we also want the stories of those people who are most harmed by prohibition and those communities that have largely been left out and not been represented in the cannabis industry in other states to have their voice.

And so you're gonna come to New York City, you're gonna go to Albany, you're gonna Syracuse, you're gonna see products, businesses that you've never seen before in the cannabis space.

And I think it's really going to be a remarkable thing for the rest of the world and the rest of the country to see, you know, what we build and to take inspiration from it.

You know, I do want to see the stuff that we're doing here implemented in London and Berlin and, you know, in Latin America, I think that there's so much potential for this industry to not be extractive and exploitative and harmful in ways that other industries have been.

And I think that if you just empower regulators, you know, who actually care about this plant, care about this industry, care about people, you know, the policies and regulations that are gonna come outta that work are gonna create a much more viable you know, sustainable industry.

And so, yeah, I, you know, I want a cannabis industry that is as incredible as this state is, that looks like this state.

And that's what I really hope to see in three to five years.

- Understood.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- As the industry continues to roll out we'll continue to cover cannabis in New York State.

But in any case, this has been New York Now.

Have a great week and be well.

- [Narrator] Funding for New York now is provided by WNET.