New York

Blunt black market sellers: New bill could give better tools

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As unregulated cannabis retailers proliferate around New York at eye-popping rates, the beleaguered legal businesses that only began to receive recreational retail licenses last month grow increasingly concerned that they’ll be boxed out of the market before it really gets off the ground.

The legal retailers shouldn’t be the only ones concerned. State officials know that the promised revenues from sales in the new industry won’t materialize if the bulk of the transactions involve untaxed weed sold under the table. Consumers themselves should be aware that the unregulated product they’re getting from the suddenly ubiquitous smoke shops isn’t the real deal and could actually be dangerous.

According to a study released by the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut cannabis trade associations — which, yes, have a vested interest, but are also showing their work — the suspect pot sold in these smoke shops and bodegas has sometimes tested positive for E. coli and heavy metals like nickel. They also feature concentrations of THC that can be much lower or much greater than advertised, leaving customers in the dark about what exactly they’re consuming.

Shut them down.

Part of the problem is that there hasn’t been a broad enough range of tools to combat these retailers. While we’ve commended the state Office of Cannabis Management for working with law enforcement to raid some operators and seize their product, this approach can only really address a small slice of the issue.

Stepping up to the plate is Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, who is preparing a bill that would take fines for unlawful retail sale from a $250 initial infraction — just the cost of doing business — to $2,500 and higher for repeat violators. The bill would also clarify that, despite weed’s newly lawful status in New York, businesses selling without a license are violating the law, and explicitly empower authorities to seize businesses that persist in doing so. The Legislature should pass it to make black market retailers think twice and keep the state’s nascent legal marijuana experiment from going further south fast.

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