Weed Control
Aaron Ghitelman knows the cannabis business has always been alive in New York. He says his office is simply shepherding the industry into a legal market.
With three licensed recreational cannabis vendors open in NYC and 1,400 unlicensed cannabis vendors that Mayor Adams is cracking down on, the hope for a blooming market of legal bud can seem like a pipe dream. With the prominence of “legacy operators”, people that have been selling since before it was legal, it’s hard to expect the populous to leave their friendly dealer for a dispensary and a sales tax.
Aaron Ghitelman couldn’t be more enthusiastic about it.
Ghitelman, 31, is the Deputy Director of Communications in charge of press relations for New York’s Office of Cannabis Management. Since the legalization of cannabis in 2021, 66 licenses have been handed out in the state, and 13 in NYC.
We spoke for an hour and a half on the phone. The following is an edited down version of our conversation.
Q: Can you explain to me exactly what your job at the Office of Cannabis Management is?
A: I am the Deputy Director of Communications for the New York State Office of Cannabis Management. There are two Deputy Directors in my role. I oversee the offices, press relations, so making sure we’re responsive to folks, making sure we get our stories out and just let New Yorkers know what’s going on.
Q: What is the OCM’s mission?
A: The Office of Cannabis Management’s overarching goals are to implement the MRTA, The Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act that passed in 2021, and essentially what that means in practice is setting up an industry and its regulatory structure to make sure it lives up to the goals of equity, diversity, inclusion, and access. Essentially, we have this incredible opportunity to create the regulatory framework of an industry from scratch, and this happens so rarely. I think in some ways, not since the repeal of alcohol prohibition have states had this incredible opportunity to shape how an industry looks fully from scratch.
Q: The first licenses are being handed out to people that have had marijuana-related convictions and their family members, and I think that’s really great, but at this moment with only three licensed dispensaries open in New York, how do you feel about the rollout of licenses?
A: Honestly, I am incredibly enthused about what everything I’m seeing and everything that’s going on, from the bottom to the top of the supply chain, and I… I understand there are frustrations. Everybody in New York wants everything done immediately, but the thing is with cannabis, we wanted this done yesterday.
The pace of New York’s rollout is faster than a lot of other states and on par with most states. We’re doing this in a way no other state on the East Coast has.
Q: How so?
A: So a lot of states, they said, “Oh, we have a medical program, we’re just gonna kind of authorize the operators of a medical program to divert product and make sales to the adult use market. And New York could have done that, but we looked at it and we saw how that often shakes out.
Most state’s medical operators are vertically integrated, meaning they’re doing the cultivation, the processing, and the retail all under the umbrella of one company. New York chose instead to start with the cultivators. We licensed cultivators in the spring of 2022.
Q: I read that New York hemp growers were authorized to grow cannabis with THC recreationally. Are they the first ones being given the opportunity to grow for recreational dispensaries?
A: Exactly, so all the products on the shelves of recreational dispensaries are grown by the family farms that were participating in the CBD hemp program. These are people who have spent a couple of years growing this plant, are familiar with this plant, and now they have the opportunity to grow cannabis with THC in it, and they’ve done a really good job.
I don’t say that from an outsider perspective. I say that as someone who’s purchased my fair share of products from New York’s legal dispensaries in the few weeks that they have been open, and I have been incredibly impressed with what I’ve got.
Q: I recently spoke to a smoke shop employee whose owner was given a misdemeanor for selling cannabis. He said he doesn’t know why there’s a problem with selling weed when only a few licenses have been handed out and people have always been buying weed in NY. What do you think of that?
A: Oh my God, I mean, why is there a problem? For one, it creates deep confusion where lots of well-educated New Yorkers go to an elicit shop thinking it’s legal and licensed. Thinking that there is a certain level of quality control. Thinking that the money they spend there, will go back into the state program and kind of reverberate throughout the communities most impacted by prohibition. It’s not just the confusion. We know that there are illicit operators who are selling products to those under 21, to high school students. Yes, New York legalized cannabis, but we didn’t legalize selling to people under 21.
Q: What do you say to people that want nothing more than to sell cannabis, but must wait on getting a license?
A: There’s no rush. The way the New York market infrastructure is set up, when there is a license that you are eligible for, you will have a real place to compete, and you will have a real chance. This isn’t San Francisco in 1848, where if you show up a little late, all the gold’s going to be gone. There are opportunities.
