{"id":20797,"date":"2023-11-29T02:12:25","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T08:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=20797"},"modified":"2023-11-29T02:12:30","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T08:12:30","slug":"new-yorks-marijuana-market-is-a-mess-and-the-states-top-weed-cops-just-decided-to-settle-the-flood-of-lawsuits-jamming-all-the-weed-shops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=20797","title":{"rendered":"New York\u2019s marijuana market is a mess and the state\u2019s top weed cops just decided to settle the flood of lawsuits jamming all the weed shops"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">New York cannabis regulators approved a deal on Monday to settle lawsuits that have blocked recreational marijuana dispensaries from opening, as officials move to restart the state\u2019s troubled legal market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The settlement still needs a judge\u2019s approval before it can take effect. The state\u2019s Cannabis Control Board did not immediately release the terms of the settlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The deal would lift a court order that has blocked the state from processing or issuing&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/new-york-legal-marijuana-cannabis-493fb260a17c53733dbe39d703268349\">retail marijuana licenses<\/a>&nbsp;since August, following lawsuits over rules that promised many of the first licenses to people with past drug convictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">New York\u2019s retail marijuana market has been in disarray since&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/new-york-city-business-868880332374272ba3b98363c3572b8b\">sales began<\/a>&nbsp;almost a year ago. Bureaucratic problems and lawsuits have allowed only about two-dozen legal shops to open, while farmers sit on a glut of crops and an ever-growing black market of storefronts fill the void.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The New York State Cannabis Control Board said more than 400 provisional retail licensees will be able to move forward with their stores if the settlement is approved by a judge. Regulators also recently opened up a general application window to grow, process, distribute or sell marijuana, expecting to issue more than 1,000 new licenses in a bid to kickstart the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The lawsuits \u2014 one of them filed by a group of four military veterans and the other by a coalition that included large medical marijuana companies \u2014 challenged state rules that allowed people with drug convictions to open the first dispensaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Last summer, state Supreme Court Justice Kevin Bryant blocked the state\u2019s licensing program from moving forward. He ruled that regulators improperly limited the first round of licenses to people with past convictions rather than a wider group of so-called social equity applicants included in the original law that legalized marijuana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">A representative for the group of veterans declined to comment on Monday. An attorney for the coalition of medical marijuana companies did not return an emailed request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The settlement vote came during an emergency hearing in New York City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2023\/11\/28\/new-york-marijuana-cannabis-market-weed-shops-settlement-lawsuits-regulators\/\">Fortune<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York cannabis regulators approved a deal on Monday to settle lawsuits that have blocked recreational marijuana dispensaries from opening, as officials move to restart the state\u2019s troubled legal market. The settlement still needs a judge\u2019s approval before it can take effect. The state\u2019s Cannabis Control Board did not immediately release the terms of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5784],"tags":[1213,2861,4435,1456,24601,2831,2727],"class_list":["post-20797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-chaos","tag-drugs","tag-litigation","tag-marijuana","tag-markets","tag-new-york","tag-stores"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20799,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20797\/revisions\/20799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}