![]() “The expectation and the precedent has been in literally every other market that if you were a medical operator in good standing that you would have an opportunity to participate in the adult-use market if and when that occurred,” he said in an interview with THE CITY. Matt Darin, the CEO of Curaleaf, a $3 billion cannabis corporation, said that getting into the wider adult-use business from the medical niche was always the goal. ![]() Now, with the state having failed to roll out more than a handful of weed stores, a court injunction halting the opening of stores owned by people affected by drug laws, and licensed growers sitting on hundreds of thousands of pounds of rotting product because of the dearth of authorized retailers, the companies are about to cash in on a market they have campaigned to reach for years through millions of dollars of lobbying in Albany. “No other state in the country prioritized the people who were most negatively impacted more than New York,” state Assembly majority leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes (D-Buffalo), who co-sponsored the legislation, told THE CITY in an interview. To promote sustainability, the state required them to plant outdoors instead of in greenhouses, which trap globe-warming gasses. Upstate farmers who had lost their shirts when the market for hemp collapsed got the chance to grow the state’s first legal crops. The state granted the first retail licenses to people who had been locked up on weed-related charges and their relatives. ![]() When legalization took place in March 2021, the law’s progressive character assumed center stage. State officials prohibited this type of vertical integration in the law legalizing cannabis so that small operators entering the market had a better chance to succeed against deep-pocketed corporate players.įor those who have tracked the state’s legalization process, Big Weed’s multi-million entry may come as a surprise. ![]() They’ll be allowed to cultivate up to 100,000-square-feet of weed in indoor environments not permitted for other growers, allowing them five harvests a year, compared to one for the struggling individual farmers currently licensed by the state to grow outdoors only.Īnd they’ll be the only state licensees allowed to operate full farm-to-processor-to-retail operations. If, as expected, the state’s cannabis regulatory agency passes on Tuesday a proposed set of permanent rules for the industry, any of the 11 medical companies that pony up a $5 million down payment will be able to open one of their medical stores to sell cannabis products to adults over 21 by the end of the year - a couple of years earlier than previously proposed. Members and sponsors make THE CITY possible. Each has invested millions in its operations, all with the gleam of the 2021 legalization in their eyes. Today, there are 11 medical marijuana companies licensed in the state. While corporate controversy led to Bierman’s exit from the business a few years ago, many investors and cannabis entrepreneurs have flocked to New York in his stead, bitten by the same bug. In 2018, MedMen opened one of its signature retail stores, for medical users only, on Fifth Avenue, envisioning the day it would sell to the broad mix of New Yorkers and tourists passing by. “Manhattan is a jewel - maybe the jewel in North America - for building a brand around the world.” “It was a future investment,” said Bierman. He pursued the acquisition of one of the state’s five authorized medical marijuana companies in anticipation of the day New York would follow what looked like an inevitable path to full legalization. New York was years behind California on legalization, but it had an allure. In Los Angeles, his company, MedMen, had become known for its glossy red storefronts with sleek, minimalist interiors that drew comparisons to Apple Stores and the eyes of investors.Ĭalifornia had already legalized weed, allowing his company to expand from the medical marijuana market, and he proceeded to dot L.A.s’ skyline with red billboards promoting his brand. In early 2017, there might not have been a flashier entrepreneur in the legal cannabis industry than Adam Bierman.
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