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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we'll compare the rollout of the legal weed industries in New York and New Jersey. People in both states, but especially New York, are asking, why so slow? Where are all the stores? They're asking, what are we going to do about all these illegal weed shops, again, especially in New York, that are still up and competing with the new businesses that are trying to get off the ground legitimately?

People in both states are worrying about dangerous unregulated strains. It's been a year now since New Jersey opened its first legal recreational dispensaries with New York following suit when Housing Works opened its doors in the village in December. One big consideration, even before recreational sales became legal, has been how to balance the licenses between the big national companies, existing medical cannabis retailers, and to try to make licenses available to those who have been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs.

While regulators have been weighing that problem for a few years now, unlicensed and unregulated shops have sprung up to meet consumer demand. In fact, in New Jersey, one of the reasons is that New Jersey, from what I've read, has the highest legal cannabis prices in the country. Joining me now to compare and contrast legal weed so far in New York and New Jersey are Alyson Martin on the New York side, for the sake of this conversation, she's co-founder of Cannabis Wire, an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Alyson, to be fair to the breadth of her expertise, has big national picture knowledge and reporting chops, but she's talking New York for us for this segment. On the Jersey side, Sophie Nieto-Muñoz, State House reporter for New Jersey Monitor. Sophie, welcome to WNYC, and Alyson, welcome back.

Alyson Martin: Thank you so much for having me.

Sophie Nieto-Muñoz: Thank you for having us. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Can we start by crunching a few basic numbers? Sophie, how many legal recreational dispensaries are open in New Jersey now?

Sophie Nieto-Muñoz: New Jersey launched one year ago on 4/21 one day after 4/20. We started with 13 dispensaries, and were up to a grand total of 24 now, which is just under double. It's one of the biggest criticisms, it's how few dispensaries have been opened so far across the state.

Brian Lehrer: Is that an underperforming number compared to what was anticipated, and are most of them concentrated just outside New York City area?

Sophie Nieto-Muñoz: I'll answer your second part first, a lot of them are concentrated in North Jersey, but they are kind of scattered all around. We did expect to see more businesses open by now, specifically small businesses. All of the dispensaries that are open in New Jersey right now are previously medical dispensaries that expanded into recreational sales.

They're known as multi-state operators or basically corporate cannabis stores. People really thought that by now we would have more of these small businesses open and ready to sell, ready to cultivate, ready to manufacture. Where we're at on that is the Cannabis Regulatory Commission, which is the agency that oversees marijuana, they've approved 1,200 conditional licenses for cultivation, manufacturing, and retail. That means eventually we'll have 1200 places growing, distributing, and selling weed, but none of those have opened yet. There's still definitely a lot of people wanting more of those.

Brian Lehrer: Alyson, with acknowledgement that New Jersey had a, most of the year, head start, if they have 24, how many does New York have?

Alyson Martin: I think nine, as of this morning, have opened. New York regulators have awarded nearly 100 conditional adult use retail licenses to "justice-involved individuals." These are people who have a cannabis record or a close family member with a cannabis record, or they're a nonprofit like Housing Works or the [unintelligible 00:04:42] fund that part of their mission is to repair some of the harms caused by the war on drugs. Nine as of this morning.

Brian Lehrer: What you just described there as to who the nine are, does that make New York very different from New Jersey? If in New Jersey it's the previously existing medical dispensaries who've gotten to expand and New York is really trying to give a head start to the justice-involved licensees, as they're called, is New York actually doing something that other states have failed to do, which is actually make some reparations to people who've gotten caught up in the war on drugs, illegal weed version?

Alyson Martin: It's definitely an unprecedented approach. When we were talking a couple of years ago, Brian, when negotiations were ongoing between the Senate and Assembly, and the former governor, the sticking points were over some of these equity provisions. The authors of MRTA, the law that was signed, were very clear that they wanted to really walk the walk and not just talk the talk on equity.

For example, since MRTA was signed, regulators have given a head start to those justice-involved individuals to open up shop before existing medical cannabis operators or ROs. Those MSOs that Sophie was just mentioning, they're on the sidelines right now waiting while justice-involved individuals start to open up shop first.

Brian Lehrer: In fact, aren't some existing medical cannabis operators known as registered organizations, or ROs, actually suing New York State for access to the market saying by giving a leg up to the justice-involved applicants, that they're discriminating illegally against others who want to open these businesses?

Alyson Martin: Yes. The rules as written have those ROs waiting, I believe, three years to join the adult use market here in New York. Also, they would have to pay a $5 million fee. The ROs, it's important to know, are fairly well capitalized, vertically integrated, which means they're controlling their cannabis supply chain from seed to sale, and they have these fairly large footprints in other states.

Basically what they're arguing is that they should be able to open up shop right now, and they're suing for access to the adult use market right now. They basically argue that MRTA, the law that former governor Andrew Cuomo signed, allows them access to the market right now. What's interesting, I just had a conversation very recently with assembly majority leader, Crystal Peoples-Stokes, one of the authors of that bill, and she actually agrees.

Brian Lehrer: Sophie, you recently reported in New Jersey Monitor that in Jersey, about 70% of all cannabis licenses have gone to businesses with diverse ownership. Even if it's gone to the established medical dispensaries and doesn't have the same more ambitious justice-involved licensees program that New York has, they're winding up with some diversity in the ownership ranks?

Sophie Nieto-Muñoz: Yes. Part of the reason that medical dispensaries were able to launch first was just because they already had the stock, the approval of the towns, and overcame a lot of the hurdles that these small businesses are seeing. That being said, New Jersey definitely is making social equity a priority, and it's been a priority from the very start in its legislation known as the CREAMM Act here.

There's been a very concerted effort to make sure the law is implemented in a way that lifts up the people hurt by the war on drugs and marijuana prohibition. We even have a diversity inclusion director within the CRC. In New Jersey, if you are an applicant and it's a woman-owned business, minority-owned business, veteran-owned, or you're located in an economically disadvantaged area, your application is going to be bumped up in the review process. That's why we've seen so many of these licenses go directly to these diversely owned businesses.

That has been lifted up by cannabis advocates as something that New Jersey is getting right as other states that legalized several years ago grapple with who is benefiting and controlling their marijuana industry now. You look at Colorado, they had, last July, less than 20% of their businesses, their cannabis dispensaries were diversely owned. They have a massive gender gap, and they launched 10 years ago. Right now, we're not seeing that in New Jersey. We are seeing this MSO versus no small businesses opening, and none of these equity owners have opened, so they're not currently financially benefiting from the cannabis industry, but time will tell and their stores were opened.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you're just joining us, we have a few more minutes comparing the rollout of the legal recreational cannabis industries in New York and New Jersey with Sophie Nieto-Muñoz, state house reporter for New Jersey Monitor who was just speaking, and Alyson Martin, co-founder of Cannabis Wire and adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, obviously located in New York. Let's take a call from each state. Mike in Jersey City, you are on WNYC. Hi, Mike.

Mike: Yes. Hi there, Brian, long time no talk. First of all, I love the New Jersey Monitor. That is a really great news service and anybody in New Jersey who doesn't subscribe to it, and it's free, is making a big mistake. That said, I was wondering if I could ask the representative to comment on the fact that one of the first weed stores approved, at least in Hudson County, is owned by the wife of Jersey City Mayor and just announced gubernatorial candidate Steve Fulop.

Brian Lehrer: Do you know about that, Sophie?

Sophie Nieto-Muñoz: I do. I want to thank you so much for your kind words about the Monitor, thank you. Yes, there have been a bunch of dispensaries that have political connections. I don't know specifically too much about the one that's owned in Hudson County by Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop's wife. I believe that one is in Hoboken, but we have uncovered other lawmakers, they're also using their connections to get involved in the cannabis industry.

The Democratic chair was approved for a license in East Orange. Assemblyman Raj Mukherji in Hudson County has been involved in a few dispensaries in Harrison. I think as more information surrounding who is in charge of these cannabis dispensaries or cultivation, it's New Jersey. It's not a surprise that there is some political corruption here. It's a matter of when we get the information to uncover it and see what's going on there for sure.

Brian Lehrer: Sophie, what happened with this incident where regulators curtailed the weed giant Curaleaf's legal weed sales, that's a national company, only to reverse their decision four days later and let Curaleaf to reopen?

Sophie Nieto-Muñoz: Yes. It was a bit of a stunning dramatic day. As I said, recreational cannabis launched in April 2021, so all these companies had to come back to get their license renewed during a CRC meeting. The agency really came down on Curaleaf. They're accused of union busting, shutting down a growing facility without telling the CRC, didn't come prepared to the meeting, so they failed to get their license renewed. People were really shocked because that would have meant that they would stop selling weed on April 20th. Four days later, the CRC holds a very brief emergency meeting where not a lot was explained.

We don't really know what happened over those four days, but Curaleaf got their license back. They are selling and cultivating as if this never happened, but changes were made behind the scenes. I've heard from sources that Curaleaf quickly started agreeing to come to the table with union organizers in their shops, and the CRC also gave them a list of standards to meet by their June meeting, like proof of working with organizers, business tactic documents, those statistics they were missing, and if they don't meet those standards, they could get their license taken away again.

Brian Lehrer: If we thought the cannabis industry was going to be a progressive utopia, here we are talking about union busting in the context of legal recreational cannabis rollouts. All right, we have a couple of calls from New York. We have time for one, and I will say that the New York callers are asking the same question. Alyson, I think it's not going to surprise you what it is, and we will let Kyle in Williamsburg do the honors. Hi, Kyle, we've got about 30 seconds for you. Go ahead.

Kyle: Hi, Brian. Thanks. I just want to say from a general consumer standpoint, I can just go a few blocks this way or that way in my neighborhood and go to an unlicensed shop that's owned by a minority person. I don't know how those goods are getting there, but if I go to a legit shop, say if I go to Housing Works, I'm looking at $60 or $80 for an eighth, as where these other shops, $40. I am aware on or near 14th street, you can get almost say $25 for an eighth. The pricing is just not competitive to incentivize consumers to go legit. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Kyle, thank you. Alyson, that's the big weed story that I keep hearing in New York.

Alyson Martin: Yes. More of a statement than a question, but I respect it because it's the same thing that I'm hearing from just about everyone also. This is an on-ramp to legal cannabis. It's not a light switch, maybe more of a dimmer switch. It's happening in real time, but it's not without its speed bumps. I think that's a major challenge for regulators and lawmakers right now, which is, how do you reduce the price enough to curtail folks going to unlicensed shops? Unlicensed shops, of course, they're not testing cannabis for things like molds, mildews, heavy metals, those sorts of things. They're not labeling things the way that you would see them in a legal shop.

There are all sorts of differences between legal shops and unregulated shops. Part of the solution to that is licensing many more shops and helping those shops open as quickly as possible, and part of it's public education. Regulators are pushing harder on that front. They just released another public education campaign around 4/20 called Why Buy Legal, but of course, if something's right around the block and not a long subway ride from deep in Brooklyn to lower Manhattan--

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and cheaper.

Alyson Martin: Yes, and cheaper. It's like distance and money tend to talk.

Brian Lehrer: Is it the same in New Jersey, or is it less competition from the black market storefronts? Sophie, we have 30 seconds.

Sophie Nieto-Muñoz: I would say that there is a little less competition walking around New York. There are smoke shops everywhere, but you can find these Delta-8 products very easily here in New Jersey. You could find them at gas stations, smoke shops, and people here are really worried about the same things, what this might mean for the legal cannabis industry, whether kids are getting their hands on it, are people getting sick from consuming fake cannabis? It's on the radar of lawmakers here as well.

Brian Lehrer: What's Delta-8?

Sophie Nieto-Muñoz: Delta-8 is, there's the cannabis plant, and Delta-8 and Delta-9, both give you an effect of the high. Delta-9 is what we typically think of as giving us the high when we smoke or ingest cannabis. Delta-8 gives a little less intense high, less anxiety, but it's unregulated. People are buying it without knowing what's being put into these products or how much of it is Delta-8. Same thing as New York, these heavy metals, these molds, these pesticides. That's a huge concern because it can make you very sick.

Brian Lehrer: Read Sophie Nieto-Muñoz in the New Jersey Monitor, read Alyson Martin on Cannabis Wire and take her class, if you enroll at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Thank you both so much for comparing the rollouts of legal recreational adult-use cannabis in New York and New Jersey.

Alyson Martin: Thanks so much, Brian.

Sophie Nieto-Muñoz: Thanks for having us, Brian.

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