John SchroyerThe New York Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul swooped in at the last minute – quite literally – to give the state’s nascent marijuana supply chain a critical deadline extension.
Lawmakers approved S. 7354 and A. 7430 late Wednesday, which pushes back a midnight expiration for conditional processor and distribution permits by a year, to June 1, 2024, and Gov. Kathy Hochul signed both bills into law early on Thursday, Syracuse.com reported.
The entire recreational marijuana market in New York has taken much longer to fully roll out than policymakers originally anticipated when they created the conditional permit system that the fledgling market currently operates under. The conditional licenses that growers and processors have used to get product to market were slated to expire at midnight tonight, under the original regulatory scheme that Hochul signed last year.
New distributor permits have yet to be awarded by the New York Cannabis Control Board, but the deadline extension will allow the supply chain to continue functioning normally while such wrinkles are ironed out.
Several industry stakeholders applauded the move, Syracuse.com reported, calling the deadline extension “critical” so that growers and processors can continue shipping product to retailers.
“The entire supply chain would have come to a screeching halt,” Brittany Carbone, a licensed farmer, told Syracuse.com, about what would have happened had the conditional permits not been extended.
