Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman
United States:
NYS Cannabis Industry Takes Big Step Forward With Final Cannabis Control Board Appointments
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In a critical step forward for New York State’s cannabis
industry, on Thursday, September 23, 2021, Governor Kathy Hochul
appointed Jessica Garcia and Reuben McDaniel III to the
state’s Cannabis Control Board (CCB). Garcia and
McDaniel III join Adam W. Perry, Jen Metzger, and Board Chair
Tremaine Wright to make up the five-member board responsible for
devising the framework of the State’s newly legalized
adult-use cannabis industry. These two appointments ended an
almost six-month delay in the development of the state’s
adult-use cannabis market, which will begin to take shape in the
coming months.
Significant concern arose in June 2021 when New York
State’s legislative session ended and no appointments to the
CCB or the newly established Office of Cannabis Management (OCM)
had been made. Absent a special session, the next time the
State Legislature was slated to convene was January 2022, delaying
the anticipated opening of the state’s legal cannabis
industry for at least six months. Soon after taking over for
former Governor Andrew Cuomo, however, Governor Hochul called the
legislature back for an extraordinary session on September 1, 2021,
and on that same day confirmed the appointments of both Wright and
OCM Executive Director, Christopher Alexander. The State
Assembly tapped Perry as its CCB appointment a week later, and the
State Senate selected Metzger two days after that. Governor
Hochul’s appointments of McDaniel III and Garcia on Thursday
rounded out the necessary appointments for the CCB.
Although New York State lawmakers legalized the adult use of
recreational cannabis on March 31, 2021, by passing the Marijuana
Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA), the cultivation, processing,
distribution, retail sales, and highly anticipated on-site
consumption of cannabis contemplated by the MRTA remains
impermissible until formal regulations are implemented by the CCB
and the OCM. Specifically, the MRTA delegated the
responsibilities of finalizing the regulations that will ultimately
govern the state’s legal cannabis marketplace to the
CCB. This includes drafting the application forms that
cannabis license-seekers will submit to the CCB and OCM in the
hopes of receiving one of the state’s coveted licenses.
Critically, under the MRTA, in order to operate in the
State’s adult-use market, whether by growing, processing,
making products, or selling, a business must hold a license.
The next step for the CCB is to begin drafting the regulations
that will govern New York’s adult-use cannabis market.
Although no timetable has been set for when we will see these
regulations, upon completion the CCB will publish them, receive
public comment, and incorporate such comments into the final
regulations. It is speculated that the CCB will prioritize
regulations concerning cultivation because the sooner cultivators
can grow, the sooner processors and distributors can develop
products, and the sooner retailers can sell cannabis.
So, while retail sales are not going live tomorrow, these
September appointments are crucial to the timely opening of New
York’s adult-use cannabis market. With the five-member
board in place, the CCB can finally proceed with the job assigned
to it by the MRTA and cannabis entrepreneurs can take comfort that
the application process will become clearer in the near
future.
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