New York’s legal weed is here – but where can I find it?

New York is the latest state to start selling adult (recreational) cannabis. If so, where can you buy it? Right now you can buy it from Housing Works Cannabis Co. in NOHO or Smacked in Greenwich Village. Housing Works Cannabis Co. got off to a busy start with over 500 sales in the first few hours of opening (with up to 1,500 customers being turned away on the first day of closure).

For now, these are the only places where you can buy legal recreational cannabis. But why and when will other pharmacies open?

Although there are illegal cannabis stands, shops, and delivery services scattered throughout NYC, only two adult dispensaries are operational. NYC also has a whopping 1,368 wine and liquor stores, 241 Starbucks stores, 100 7-11s, 221 Wendy’s, and 13 Krispy Kreme retailers. The operating pharmacy is just one of 36 conditional adult use pharmacy licenses approved in November 2022, with more to come. Two other dispensaries, from the Doe Fund and Essential Flowers in Manhattan and Albany, respectively, both hope to open within the next month.

Photo by Domo Jiles/EyeEm/Getty Images

When the rest of these licensed dispensaries will come online is uncertain, but many anticipate early to mid-2023. New York’s Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) has made efforts to bring operators online, with an emphasis on social justice over initial operations lies, which could possibly lead to some pharmacies only opening in the summer tourist season.

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One reason only one dispensary opened, the nonprofit Housing Works, is that the NY Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) originally only allowed nonprofit license holders to secure and expand their own dispensary spaces. While the OCM has since changed its mind, the for-profit licensees (28 of the 36 licensees) originally believed they needed to have a site provided and built by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY). DASNY has been hired to secure and build conditional dispensary sites in connection with the $200 million fund set up to support these contingent dispensaries (although how much of that $200 million has actually been raised to date is unknown was raised).

This uncertainty surrounding the properties of for-profit licensees has resulted in significant delays in their operations. With an estimated population of over 8 million in NYC alone 16% of NYC residents use the most cannabis of any city after using it 77 tons in 2017 (before it was even legal). During 2023, these 36 licensees will open in Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, Long Island, the Capital Region, Southern Tier, North Country, Mohawk Valley and Richmond. Wait, but what about Brooklyn?

Photo by Jon Flobrant via Unsplash

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A legal action The adult contingent levy application process (and its alleged favoring of New York applicants) has resulted in an injunction preventing the issuance of licenses in the Finger Lakes, Central New York, Western New York, Mid-Hudson and Brooklyn regions . With luck, an appeal by the OCM will allow licenses to be issued for all regions except the Finger Lakes.

We should see more pharmacies popping up throughout New York throughout the year, with the exception of Finger Lakes, to which we extend our deepest sympathy.