The first legal recreational marijuana retail outlet has opened in New York. The first cannabis products made their way over the counter there on Thursday (local time) – as hundreds of people queued up around the block.
The first state-sanctioned outlet in New York is operated by the nonprofit organization Housing Works. The store on Manhattan’s Broadway opened its doors to the public at 4:20 p.m. local time – a nod to the number 420 (pronounced: four- twenty), which has long been a code for cannabis use.
It is expected that the metropolis could develop into one of the most lucrative cannabis markets in the USA. This has already been underlined by the presence of dozens of unauthorized cannabis shops that have openly offered their products for years.
Housing Works is operating the first of 36 retail licenses issued in the state to date. The organization mainly takes care of homeless, formerly imprisoned and people suffering from AIDS. The profits from the sale should flow back into this work.
The New York Parliament cleared the way for legally available cannabis in March 2021 after a long dispute and gave certain groups priority in the granting of licenses.
According to the civil rights organization ACLU in 2019, black New Yorkers were arrested for weed 4.5 times more often than white New Yorkers, despite the same consumption.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement Thursday it was “a new chapter for all those most harmed by past failed policies.” At the same time, unlicensed dealers are increasingly being phased out. A legal gray area emerged when the law was passed last year, and unregulated sales had increased sharply within a few months.
A lot of money is also at stake for New York: The state with a good 20 million inhabitants expects a multi-billion dollar cannabis industry and annual tax revenues of hundreds of millions of US dollars in the coming years.
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