New York's Marijuna Rollout
The first licenses for marijuana dispensaries in New York will be awarded in the weeks ahead, and state regulators are going to great lengths to redress what they see as the harms of the drug war and to prevent large companies from dominating the market.
As I reported last week in The Wall Street Journal with Zusha Elinson, New York has set up a $200 million fund from which licensees will take out loans at an interest rate of about 14% to start cannabis stores.
The loans will be available to successful applicants for the first 150 retail licenses, which are earmarked for what New York calls “justice involved” people who can show they or a close family member was convicted of a marijuana-related offense. The state will also lease and equip the locations where those stores operate.
“Equity is not a thing for us. It’s the thing,” said Chris Alexander, executive director of the New York state Office of Cannabis Management.
Nineteen states have legalized marijuana for recreational use, though it is still prohibited under federal law. Fewer than one-fifth of cannabis business owners identify as racial minorities and about 4% are Black, according to sponsors of federal legislation that would remove marijuana from the list of banned controlled substances. Advocates said New York is going beyond what’s been tried in other states, including California and New Jersey.
“We’re going to see more of a takeover of this industry by big business if more isn’t done to incentivize investors to pair with social equity applicants,” said Malcolm Weitz, who spent time behind bars for a cannabis conviction, got a retail license for his San Francisco store called MedMen Cow Hollow via San Francisco’s equity program.
YESHIVA STANDARDS: New York officials adopted new rules to enforce the requirement that religious schools provide secular instruction in English, the culmination of years of debate about whether ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools are providing enough nonreligious instruction.
The vote by the state Board of Regents on Tuesday came on the heels of a New York Times investigation. It found some yeshivas provide only 90 minutes a day of secular instruction, which tapers off in high school.
THE QUESTION: Which was the first U.S. state to legalize recreational marijuana?
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: Statues of Robert Livingston and George Clinton fill New York’s two slots at the U.S. Capitol. There’s also a statue of Alexander Hamilton, but it was commissioned by Congress.