New York’s top cannabis regulator said during a public forum on Saturday that adult-use products could be available from conditional cultivators in the fall, Syracuse.com reports. The estimate comes just weeks after officials awarded conditional cannabis cultivation licenses to more than 50 companies and farmers currently licensed to grow industrial hemp.
Cannabis Control Board Chair Tremaine Wright also told Central Harlem Community Board attendees that conditional dispensary license holders will be eligible to receive loans with interest, as opposed to grants or interest-free loans. Wright said that regulators aim to add a grant and/or zero-interest loan program and that she expects 200 businesses will receive conditional dispensary licenses.
Last month, the Cannabis Control Board approved draft regulations for those conditional retail licenses and reserved the first batch for “justice-involved” applicants – or those who have been convicted of, or whose parents, spouses, or children were convicted of, a cannabis offense prior to New York’s legalization. A Siena University poll in March found that 54% of New Yorkers opposed that plan.
Office of Cannabis Management Director Chris Alexander, agreed with Wright that sales by conditional licensees would begin in the fall but that general licensed businesses probably won’t launch until the end of this year, or early next year.
“By fall, we should have some products that are ready to be harvested,” Alexander said in an interview with Syracuse.com. “We’ll have the conditional growers, we’ll have the dispensaries online – some of them, at least – and so we’ll have a full supply chain and an active market.”
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