New York legalized adult-use marijuana more than a year ago but is yet to issue a single dispensary license. The result has been a weed free-for-all. | Richard Vogel/AP Photo
By Julian Shen-Berro and Shannon Young
11/13/2022 07:00 AM EST
NEW YORK — Inside a Brooklyn smoke shop, past rows of bongs and other paraphernalia, a display case is piled high with legal hemp and CBD — but a store employee has some advice.
“That’s not the stuff you want,” he confides to a reporter who had been wordlessly eyeing the display.
Unprompted, the worker reaches behind the counter — but not before idly musing, “you look like a cop” — and produces a plastic shopping bag containing what he says are genuine marijuana gummies, imported from California.
“I can sell you mushrooms, too,” he adds.
It’s become a familiar scene in New York City. The state legalized adult-use marijuana more than a year ago but is yet to issue a single dispensary license. The result has been a weed free-for-all: Cannabis seems to be for sale everywhere — head shops, bodegas, even from folding tables on street corners. Some dealers brazenly sell in public, and many boast their products were grown in California.
The outcome is not unlike what happened when California legalized marijuana. Six years later, illegal sellers and growers continue to thrive there. Despite those struggles, New York leaders decided to take a gentle approach with anyone selling without a license. Now, an industry expected to generate more than...
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