JOKER’S WILD: HEMP GOES LEGIT IN GOTHAM

BY KEN GIBSON. NEW YORK CITY. FEBRUARY, 2023

mentioned the possibility of lead poisoning. The issue of tainted drugs is a big one here on the East Coast, with Philadelphia residents complaining that not only does fentanyl find its way into their weed, but that xylazine, an animal tranquilizer, finds its way into their fentanyl. Shops with a permit have an advantage.

Outside of Housing Works a man was giving away spliffs to advertise a shop that is set to open soon, Chozen Remedy. He explained that it had applied for a permit, but that they had not been granted one yet, and felt they must open if only to sell clothes in order to carve their niche while they waited for a permit.

New York City planted its first legal marijuana shop right downstairs from the lair of Keith Richards, taking up a large amount of the space in the former Tower Records at 8th Street & Broadway. Two days before the New Year, it opened with lines wrapping around the block, and such lines were no smaller a week later.

Thousands of not-so-legal shops continued to display their rainbow cannabis leaves in pop-ups, not just one on every street in lower Manhattan, but at times two or three in a row.

The legal product carried not only the 8.75% city and state taxes, but an excise tax of 3% on top of that. The governor and the mayor finally had their cut.

But why anyone would want to render unto Caesar any part of this puzzled me, so I questioned customers as they came out of the newly opened Housing Works Cannabis Shop. Many were loyal to the franchise, a long established thrift shop that gives its profits to AIDS patients. Others were wary of pop ups, sure they were being sold fentanyl and would get E. coli in their stash. One punter

The grey area is where many have been left, and there is much complaint on the streets that the city seems to have unfair, and unclear practices in the permit process. Most are ignoring it outright, content to flaunt their wares in plain sight, certain that the NYPD has better things to do than bust smoke joints. Like, maybe, arrest corrupt politicians.

Or, brazen in the knowledge that in a metropolis whose landlords have been devastated by covid, it was a de facto policy to leave the smokers alone and let the shops at least contain tenants, they saw their chance to cash in.

Which left a rift in the cannabis world. The mayor, Eric Adams, a former traffic policeman, relished the situation, making jokes that Curtis Sliwa (founder of the Guardian Angels, who was awarded the Presidential Medal for saving people from a burning building when he was yet a teen) parodies on CATS radio.

Mayor Eric Adams tells the taxpayers that this is a ‘budding’ project, and that the world will know that the Big Apple is the ‘joint.’ But while he laughs at his own jokes, many are wary of him – including the buyers and sellers of marijuana.

Almost one thousand would-be vendors who waited and got their permits are now not sure what to do. Should they invest in this, or just walk away, leaving the city with thousands of small businesses that are on a month-to-month lease and do not pay taxes? There seems to be no reign of law.

And in the absence of law, and of banking rules, thieves run riot. As I sat down to write this article, a brazen robbery occurred downtown, depriving a shop of thousands of dollars in cash.

While this plays out like a circus act in a city now engulfed in marijuana smoke on every corner, another situation takes place behind the scenes, hundreds of miles away in DC. The banking issue hangs like a cloud, which legislators have hoped to make go away with the passing of the SAFE (Secure and Fair Enforcement) Banking Act, that would give cannabis businesses access to banks. It has failed to pass twice, and with GOP control of the House it is not expected to pass in the near future. New York Congressman Ritchie Torres, a Bronx democrat, has supported this each time, and has lobbied for it and other banking measures that would help his constituents (the poorest in the nation). He is a member of the House Banking Committee, who recently fought to keep FTX from sliding out from under the supervision of the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). FTX, and other cryptos, claimed that they would help the poor to send money more cheaply, and also to help the cannabis industry.

The NYC cannabis industry does not need the help of Sam Bankman-Fried, it does need the help of the local and federal lawmakers.

One recommendation that I would make to get that help is that it gain more support from the public by studying more closely the na tional hemp movement and note how people such as Jack Herer, Mina Hegaard, John Roulac and Ed Rosenthal worked to bring about both legalization of marijuana and awareness of hemp. One might also make note of Texan activists such as Anita Summers, James Johnson Jr., Suzanne Middlebrooks and Darrell Suriff – all of whom have been mentioned in this magazine. Their businesses include a much wider range of hemp products than can generally be found in NYC – including Delta 8. As the politicians define what is legal in NYC, the NYC cannabis scene must define what it is about. Is it just here to make a buck off the public, or does it have deeper roots in society? Can it educate the residents of Go-