First Legal Weed Harvest in New York Customs on Harvest

A historic crop is beginning to sprout in the Empire State. As New York nears the launch of its adult cannabis market, the state’s top growers are preparing the first batch.

A report from the Associated Press on Wednesday shone a spotlight on some of New York’s first legal recreational cannabis growers, who received cultivation licenses back in April.

The AP highlighted “growers like Frank Popolizio of Homestead Farms and Ranch, where a small crew north of Albany earlier this month dug shallow holes for seedlings before hand-bagging them.”

“It’s an opportunity. There will obviously be a demand for it,” Popolizio told the Associated Press. “And hopefully it will benefit farmers. It’s been a long time since there’s been a real cash crop.”

Popolizio is the recipient of the first approximately 200 licenses granted to growers for New York’s upcoming recreational cannabis market.

The state legalized recreational cannabis for adults last year, when former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation ending prohibition and paving the way for a regulated cannabis market that is expected to start by the end of this year.

But under Cuomo, the new marijuana program was slow to take shape, as key regulatory positions went vacant for months.

After Cuomo resigned as governor last August amid allegations of sexual misconduct, he was replaced by Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who made launching the adult cannabis program a priority.

Within a month of taking office, Hochul completed two appointments at the state office for cannabis management, saying at the time that “the cannabis industry in New York has stalled for far too long.”

In April, the New York State Cannabis Control announced that it had approved the first 52 licenses to grow cannabis for adult use, with the state’s established hemp farmers receiving the first shares.

“New York farms were the backbone of our state’s economy even before the American Revolution, and now New York farms will be the center of the nation’s most equitable cannabis industry,” Hochul said at the time. “I’m proud to announce the first adult-use cannabis cultivation licenses in the state, and I’m proud of the work that the Office of Cannabis Management and the Cannabis Control Board are doing to improve the sale of adult-use cannabis up and running as quickly as possible without jeopardizing our mission to help communities and individuals hardest hit by cannabis prohibition over the past century.”

Hochul’s office said these farmers “must adhere to quality assurance, health and safety requirements developed by the [Office of Cannabis Management]’, including participation in ‘sustainability and equity mentoring programs that will help build the first generation of cannabis owners across the supply chain’.

In its report this week, the Associated Press noted that “a head start for hemp growers is an unusual way to ramp up a marijuana market,” citing an expert who said “states typically focus on their existing medicinal products first.” leave the breeder”.

“But New York’s move is a potential lifeline for farmers growing their crops for CBD during a price slump,” reported the Associated Press. “They have a chance to make a lot more money by growing essentially the same plant, but with higher THC levels — the compound that makes people feel high.”

As for recreational dispensary licenses, the state said earlier this year that the first 100 of them will go to applicants with prior cannabis-related convictions or family members of individuals with cannabis-related convictions.

The state’s Bureau of Cannabis Management said the initiative was “something that has never been done before.”