New York will soon be allowing home grown medicinal cannabis

On Thursday, the New York Cannabis Control Board met to propose new regulations that would allow licensed residents to grow marijuana in their homes.

The published changes are now available to a public panel of commentators for the next 60 days. If there is no valid objection from the public, the board will determine the legal language and move on.

This is the latest advancement in the state’s new Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act. The law legalized recreational marijuana in New York in March and also allowed home growers to use it.

Avid medical breeders have been waiting for the board’s green light for more than six months. Once the regulations are in place, they can be grown indoors and outdoors for “therapeutic purposes”.

Breeders accept the legal obligation to “take reasonable steps to ensure that cannabis plants and any cannabis grown from such plants are not readily available to anyone under the age of 21”.

Remember, this is only medical. Recreational users will have to wait to grow before adult use laws come into effect in the coming months.

A slide from the New York CCB meeting on home growing. (Courtesy of the New York Cannabis Control Board)

Slow progress for the Empire State

Medical cannabis has been legal in New York since 2014, but it’s still difficult to access compared to other states.

According to the Marijuana Policy Project, only 0.78% of New Yorkers have a health card. Neighboring Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts have all managed to get over one percent of the population medically approved.

The lack of medical penetration in New York is even more dramatic than in Florida (2.6%), which has a similar population. Even Oklahoma (9.6%) has managed to register more than ten times more residents than New York in half as many years.

The New Yorkers who can get a health card are still constrained by high prices that are rarely covered by insurance. Patients also have to pay renewal fees of $ 50 to $ 200 each year for their card and patient referral.

Former Governor Cuomo has gone from advocating legalization to serious obstacle. (Maria Altaffer / AP)

Quick action from the new governor

Governor Kathy Hochul has made rapid progress on cannabis reform since she took over the former governor. Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo never appointed the state’s Cannabis Control Board despite a six-month deadline from the MRTA that passed in September. Now that the implementation of MRTA is no longer in slow motion, Governor Hochul has received high praise from the cannabis community.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul worked quickly to make marijuana legalization a success in New York State. (AP Photo / Seth Wenig)

“I applaud the governor [Kathy] Hochul, the Cannabis Control Board and the entire team of the Office of Cannabis Management for the quick solution to this longstanding problem. ”

– NY State Senator Diane Savino, on the new homegrow regulations.

The newly appointed board of directors held its second meeting on Thursday and is pushing ahead with the new regulations. The CCB also discussed cannabis extinction at the meeting.

The meeting’s slides read: “There have been 45 deletions in marijuana possession cases, although most remain“ in custody or custody for other crimes.

Another slide stated: “Approximately 203,000 marijuana-related charges are currently being suppressed from background searches and are currently being sealed or deleted …”

The CCB in New York spoke about mass deletions at its most recent meeting. (Courtesy of the New York Cannabis Control Board)

Cannabis Control Board Chair Tremaine Wright praised Governor Hochul in an explanation of vote on Thursday.

“Thanks to the quick action of Governor Hochul and the legislature in the appointment of the Board of Directors and the management of the agency, we are moving forward at full steam and look forward to further expanding the medical program and building a new industry that operates safely and offers the opportunity the communities hardest hit by the war on drugs, ”Wright said.

In the months since Hochul took office, the state has allowed flowers to be sold in pharmacies and banned THC testing for most employees.

New York expects to earn just $ 20 million from legal cannabis fees and taxes in fiscal 2022. The state plans to generate $ 245 million annually from legal sales through 2024.

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