How wakefulness turned New York into Weed City

New York is captured with unlicensed marijuana dealers. It seemed to happen almost overnight. Suddenly, there were signs in front of smokehouses advertising THC compounds before the roll; there are edibles in many bodegas. Gotham sinks into the grass. How did it happen? Waking up. Let me explain.

Twenty months ago, New York State legalized retail sale of marijuana, but woke up with a catch. As compensation, the state decided to grant marijuana licenses almost exclusively to people with previous marijuana abuse convictions.

Let’s put aside the madness of rewarding criminal behavior in this way and focus on the fact that just last month the first 36 licenses were issued. Thirty-sixth. Since March 2021, when legalization took place, hundreds of unlicensed retailers have sprung up like weeds.

NEW YORK’S FIRST LEGAL RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY IS SCHEDULED TO OPEN IN DECEMBER. 29

Now Mayor Eric Adams says we need a crackdown on unlicensed marijuana sellers and harsher punishment for them, otherwise ex-convict licensed shops will not survive.

To make this clear, Adams says we need tougher penalties for illegal marijuana sales so that people who were allegedly wrongfully punished for illegal marijuana sales in the past can sell marijuana legally. It’s a level of absurdity that Lewis Carroll would have found too far-fetched for Alice in Wonderland.

It’s a master class in the pernicious influence of progressive chauvinism and its reverse priorities. Cities and states around the world have legalized the retail sale of marijuana for more than a decade, creating simple, clear, and open regulatory systems. It’s not that hard.

Instead, New York decided, as the left put it, to focus justice in politics. While the council in charge of it all counted on its toes for nearly two years figuring out how to give ex-criminals a monopoly on this new market, entrepreneurs who were happy to play by the fair rules simply set up shop.

Now they are being punished for a crime that, according to the state, should not have been a crime. Make it smart.

Here is a short list of regulatory deficiencies through unenforceable compensations that create a black market. Sales are untaxed, no one checks sales to minors, products can be dangerous and are supplied by outright criminal cartels, products are sold that look like regular candy and can be eaten by children.

This is what was done by a New York political class that cares more about signaling charity than sound policy.

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There were plenty of ways that the godless progressives running the Empire State could have favored criminals in the pot trade without sparking a wild, wild west of flowers, vape, and brownies. For example, tax credits or business loans.

But they decided to stifle this new industry because they didn’t want the privileged, read white, or rich, or conservative, to thrive in this new activity. And what was the result? A new criminal class, new repressions, and on whom? Not the privileged, but the marginalized.

To make this clear, Adams says we need tougher penalties for illegal marijuana sales so that people who were allegedly wrongfully punished for illegal marijuana sales in the past can sell marijuana legally.

The sad fact is that there may be no going back. In an already crime-ridden city, how much NYPD resources do we want to focus on licensing an already legalized trade? New Yorkers are used to buying their weed on the block, they’re not going to put up with legal dispensaries anymore.

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They say he woke up and broke down. Here’s a really great example: the already poor state of New York waived millions in weed sales tax to follow a ridiculous principle.

Welcome to Weed City, all the progressive horses and all the progressive people will never put together a rational marijuana policy again.

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