New York pharmacies can now sell cannabis flowers, but who stocks them?

The New York State Cannabis Control Board yesterday voted to allow the sale of cannabis flowers in all medical marijuana dispensaries. The change takes effect immediately.

Yes, it is now legal to sell flowers. But only for patients. And it’s not on the shelf yet.

This is groundbreaking news in New York, where 150,000 patients were previously restricted to non-flower products like tinctures and edibles. These modalities work for many patients, but the delay in onset is a problem for some. The effects of cannabis flowers, absorbed through the lungs as smoke or steam, can be felt almost immediately.

The Cannabis Control Board also voted to double each patient’s purchase limit – from a 30-day supply to a 60-day supply – and abolish the $ 50 registration fee.

Do you have a flower to sell?

The news surprised many pharmacies when frontline staff suddenly started taking calls from patients asking for state-licensed weed. Calls to a number of pharmacies on Wednesday afternoon suggested it could be days or weeks before licensed flowers actually hit store shelves.

At Etain, MedMen, Be, and other state-licensed pharmacies, inquiries came with roughly the same answer: yes, it is now legal to sell flowers, and no, we don’t have them in stock yet. In addition: Ambulances still only serve state-registered medical patients. Selling to adults is not yet legal. (There seems to be some confusion in this as consumers read the “legal to sell flower” message as a signal that recreational cannabis sales have started. They didn’t.)

Related

How to Get a New York Medical Marijuana Card

Little information from government regulators

This appears to be a case where the news of the policy change outperforms the actual implementation of the policy. Thousands of registered patients read about the board’s decision on the New York Daily News, Buffalo News, and other media outlets – but pharmacies have received no information from the Cannabis Control Board on how the change will actually be implemented. As of Wednesday afternoon, there was no information about the change on the state’s medical marijuana website.

There are a number of questions that remain unanswered, including how pharmacies are supposed to sell flowers. Some states have allowed pharmacies to store fresh buds in jars (which allow patients to see and smell the product), while other states allow flowers to be sold only in tightly closed packages.

Why delay the flower sales anyway?

The ban on cannabis flowers in medical states has long been a point of contention between policy makers and medical advocates. In states like Florida and New York, medical programs began as non-flower programs, largely because lawmakers disagreed with the idea of ​​cannabis flower as a legitimate medicine. Filling cannabinoid products into more traditional containers like tincture bottles has often been seen as a sensible compromise.

New York is following a path Florida established, allowing flowers years after pharmacies opened without them. The impact in Florida has been huge – the state saw a boom in medical marijuana patient applications and an immediate surge in sales across the country.

Change is expected to boost purchasing

This week’s triple whammy in New York – allowing flowers to be sold, doubling the purchase amount, and removing the $ 50 fee – could do the same for the Empire State medicinal market. With a population of nearly 20 million but only 150,000 patients, New York City has one of the lowest per capita patient rates for medical marijuana in the country. Florida, with a population of 22 million, has nearly 600,000 registered medical marijuana patients.

Leafly will continue to investigate the situation in New York and update this story later in the day. There is a lot of confusion about this in pharmacies right now, as government regulators are not exactly accommodating the new rules for selling flowers. So please keep this in mind when contacting your local point of sale. People there do their best with limited information.

Bruce Barcott and Calvin Stovall

Leafly Senior Editor Bruce Barcott oversees news, research, and feature projects. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and author of Weed the People: The Future of Legal Marijuana in America.

Calvin Stovall is Leafly’s East Coast Editor. He writes and produces media in Atlanta, GA and runs the day-to-day business for The Artistic Unified Exchange, a nonprofit that protects intellectual property on behalf of independent artists and underserved communities.

See articles by Bruce Barcott and Calvin Stovall

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