‘Ask me anything’ about cannabis legalization with Jeffrey Hoffman (2024)

Jeffrey Hoffman is a New York City-based attorney who hosts “Ask Me Anything about Cannabis Legalization in New York” each week on LinkedIn. Hoffman and NY Cannabis Insider have partnered to bring those sessions into print in a Q&A format.

Hoffman’s practice focuses on cannabis industry clients, including licensees in the adult-use market, practitioners in the medical cannabis space, and cannabis adjacent product and service providers. He has a particular interest in social and economic equity cannabis license applicants, and he also informs and assists those convicted of cannabis offenses in getting such convictions expunged from their record. He can be reached at info@420jurist.com.

The following AMA is from March. 27 and the interview with Colin Decker, owner of Sensei Growth Consulting, is from April 3.

Are you optimistic about the Governor having the Office of General Services audit OCM?

I introduced myself to her at the board meeting in March. You know, I just very politely said, “Hello, my name is Jeffrey Hoffman. I have a huge number of cannabis clients all over the state, and I would welcome the opportunity to speak with you about this further.” And she thanked me. And that was it. So, you know, whatever. My feel is that she wants to do what she needs to do and get the heck out of OCM as quickly as possible. I think she’s going to do what she’s been assigned to do by the Governor, and I think she will absolutely make some solid recommendations. I hope one of which is what I said at that board meeting, which is OCM needs some type of real, robust account management system, where you assign licensees and applicants to account managers. And those are the only people the licensees and applicants ever talk to - this would go a long way towards dealing with the complaints related to communication. So am I optimistic? Optimistic is a strong word. I am pragmatic on this one. I do think there will be some good recommendations, but it’s yet to be seen how many of them actually get implemented.

Do you think onsite consumption lounges will be allowed to serve alcohol and food?

100% no on alcohol. This is explicitly forbidden in the Cannabis Law. As for food, I hope so at some point. There was some chatter in more halcyon days about the onsite license allowing restaurants to infuse food. OCM has enough on their plate now, but hopefully we’ll get back to it. That said, a business having one regulator is bad enough. Are you really sure you want two?

What do the weird do when the going gets weird?

Turn pro.

INTERVIEW WITH COLIN DECKER

JEFFREY: So Colin, where are we in cannabis in New York right now. Are you happy? Are you sad? How are you feeling?

COLIN: We’re seeing stores starting to open up more and more. This is what we all were kind of waiting for. I’m seeing newer products coming onto the market. But at the same time, we still have a long way to go with the regulations - especially with marketing and advertising. I’m here to sell some weed. I want people to smoke some weed.

JEFFREY: I do want to look at positives before we get to negatives. Give me some positive things, some positive momentum, some good things that you see that are happening in New York cannabis.

COLIN: We finally are seeing these microbusiness licenses being given out as well as indoor tier ones and tier twos. And I think a lot of the unique flower based products that are going to come to market are going to come from those cultivators, alongside those who are AUCC and AUCP, who have gotten to a great place with newer genetics and products. They’ve kind of worked the kinks out of their grows, and now they’re getting on a steady stream of better and better flour based products. So I’m excited to see the quality of flower increasing, newer products coming to market, and genetics that people are finally realizing don’t have to be blueberry muffin all the time.

JEFFREY: OK - next give me the two biggest problems that you see right now and how you would fix those two problems.

COLIN: The first big problem is we’re not allowing the stores to market and advertise as they should. If a liquor store can do something, and it can put up bright lights and neon signs, liquor bottles to the glass and so forth - if alcohol can do it, cannabis should be able to do it. on a percent. Second, we need to support New York more. This isn’t California. This isn’t Oregon. This is New York, and if we want to have the best products coming out of New York, then we need to support those that are growing those products. We need to support our farmers - we need to support the stores that are being self funded. New York baby!

Could banks like Citibank and Chase provide a waiver to have a cannabis tenant in a building they finance?

They could, but they won’t. Those banks won’t touch cannabis until we get federal legalization. For now it will be the small and medium-ish banks.

What is the exact distance a dispensary can be from another dispensary?

It depends on the population of the municipality where the dispensary is located. It’s 1000 feet if the population is 20,000 or more and 2000 feet if under 20,000. In the 2020 census, these were the places over 20,000 (the numbers are certainly different now):