Even the most ardent supporters of the legalization of recreational marijuana must admit that New York State’s implementation of 2021’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA) is full of red flags. There is perhaps no greater evidence of that than the state’s dramatically lowered revenue projections in this year’s budget.
When the MRTA passed last March, it was sold to New Yorkers as an economic engine that would generate north of $300 million per year in tax revenue. That number quietly dropped more than 80% to $56 million in this year’s budget.
This fiasco was predictable if New York had bothered to learn from other states’ experience with legal marijuana. In California, high marijuana taxes and ill-advised regulations created an illicit market that is twice the size of the legal market, threatening the collapse of the legal market.
The same scenario is playing out in New York. On day one, the law signed by then-governor Andrew Cuomo decriminalized the possession of marijuana two years before the start of legal sales. Almost overnight, retail pot operations sprang up across the state.
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In New York City, there are storefront dispensaries and mobile pop-up shops. Marijuana-delivery services offer discounts to new customers. Sticker shops and other retail enterprises are “gifting” marijuana to patrons while dispensaries on sovereign Native American territories draw a steady stream of cars.
The New York Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), charged with creating a legal marijuana market, has been slow to act. OCM’s leadership spends a lot of time on social justice posturing while the black market thrives. Stakeholders anxious to start legal operations are rightfully frustrated. Marijuana sales are booming, yet New York’s coffers have not received a single dollar.
With a laser focus on claiming the title of “most progressive,” the drafters of New York’s legal marijuana law turned a blind eye to public safety. New York is the only state that allows consumption virtually anywhere. The only restriction is marijuana cannot be smoked where tobacco smoking is banned. There are no restrictions on edibles. In New Jersey, you cannot use marijuana in any form in a car, even if you’re a passenger. New York lacks such common sense, public-safety minded restrictions.
As we’ve seen with other flawed policies, the Democratic majorities in the Senate and Assembly relied heavily on radical-activist input to draft the MRTA and failed to fully capitalize on the lessons learned by other states. Much like with bail reform, pragmatic strategies aimed at building a responsible, workable and sustainable system are missing from this effort. Law-abiding New Yorkers will be the ones that pay the price.
Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, represents New York’s 57th Senate District.
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