First official marijuana store in New York opens with lines and online sales plan

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Although New York was not the pioneer in legalizing the sale of recreational cannabis in the United States, the opening of the first store specializing in the substance in the city followed the philosophical dilemma: if a tree falls in the forest and no one notices, does it make a noise?

As the queue has occupied every day the entire block of Broadway, in southern Manhattan, the epicenter of national and international attention, it can be said that the sale of marijuana has been making a lot of noise since the last day 29, when the Housing Works Cannabis Store was inaugurated .

Last Thursday afternoon (5) the long crowd was distinguished by another characteristic not associated with native New Yorkers: strangers struck up friendly conversations as if they were acquaintances. Nor is it common for a voluntary queue, associated with recreation, to bring together the elderly and teenagers —the latter isolated from the world by headphones.

Legislation and licensing of producers and traders of cannabis derivatives is the responsibility of individual states in the US. Mayor Eric Adams, elected in 2021 on a crime-fighting platform, became a vigorous advocate of a production and marketing model that was characterized by equity. After all, at the height of the so-called war on drugs, New York led the country in the number of arrests and disproportionate punishment of low-income Blacks and Latinos.

Adams created the Cannabis NYC municipal agency and tapped veteran Dasheeda Dawson, an author who specializes in cannabis marketing and retail, as its director. She previously oversaw the Portland, Oregon program.

In a telephone interview with Sheet, Dawson explains why the first licensed store in Manhattan is operated by Housing Works, an NGO founded in 1994 by a group of activists brought together by the AIDS epidemic. The organization began with a focus on supporting homeless people who were living with HIV and became well known in the city for operating stores with donated stock of used items, including a bookstore-cafe in the Soho neighborhood.

“The retail experience made Housing Works an ideal symbol to launch the program,” says Dawson, noting also that the foundation recruits employees from among the population it serves, in many cases “taking people off the streets to get decent employment.”

Social justice is a factor in granting licenses in the New York model, explains the supervisor. “We want to privilege and engage individuals and families of marijuana possession convictions, disproportionately penalized by past policing practices.”

City hall estimates that the new industry could create up to 24,000 jobs and generate sales of US$ 1.3 billion (R$ 6.8 billion) in the city whose economy continues to be hit by the shock of the Covid pandemic, with more than half of the spaces empty commercials.

You have to be 21 to enter the Housing Works store in the East Village. An employee checks documents on the sidewalk before releasing groups to form a second line inside the store. This reporter waited, between the two steps, almost an hour and a half to buy Pillow Talk, a 100-gram package of jujubes flavored with blueberries and lavender, for US$ 35 (R$ 185).

(Of all the reporting expenses I had to collect from Sheetnone before had provided a pleasant night’s sleep, rare for a career insomniac.)

For now, the store only accepts cash and does not deliver. Dawson says enabling online sales for delivery is a necessary priority to accommodate the habits of New Yorkers.

In line on the sidewalk, Angela Hopkins and Siki Bucci are not old friends, but they scheduled a program around the trip to the store. The first, an executive living in Harlem, says she is happy to spend money that can benefit “the kids who live close by and have been to prison.” Less interested in recreation, she looks to topical products like balms, as she is a breast cancer survivor.

Exuberant Finnish expatriate Bucci, who declares herself prematurely retired, opens her purse to show that, in addition to being an experienced consumer, she “likes everything”: groceries, jelly beans, chocolates, cigarettes and vaping (electronic cigarettes). Asked about the list of possible interests —recreational? Medicinal? Relaxing?—she doesn’t think twice: “I’m in the business of getting ‘high’ [‘high’]I like being under the influence of cannabis to think creatively”.

New Yorker William (“no last name, please”) is on his second shopping trip and believes that prices in New York —like everything else in New York— are a little higher. A veteran user, he says his priority is to relax, before saying goodbye by asking: “Did you [brasileiros] already got rid of [ex-presidente Jair] Bolsonaro?”

Dasheeda Dawson recalls that New York’s cannabis program is a multi-departmental task force with an emphasis on health, and laments that there is still a shortage of physicians with experience in the medicinal use of the substance. “Our plan is to support health professionals who are dedicated to this type of research.”

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