Bedford Cannabis Doctor Joins Suit Against State

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Messy Marijuana Rollout Disrupts Budding Industry, Creates Logjam  

Like most surgeons, accustomed to directing the action, Dr. Stanley West was a commanding presence.

A Vietnam veteran and father of two sons, West raised a family in Bedford, and enjoyed significant professional success as the chief of reproductive endocrinology at St. Vincent’s Hospital.

But Parkinson’s is a cruel disease, and by 2016, the symptoms had zapped West of his zest for life.

The family turned to cannabis.

Medical marijuana had already been legalized in New York two years earlier but West’s wife, Dr. Lynn Parodneck, identified a cannabis strain in Seattle as best to treat her husband’s symptoms, requiring a trip west.

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“It really helped him have a decent day,” Parodneck recalled for me in a phone interview last week. “He wasn’t anxious. He was a lot more open to suggestions and a lot more open to leaving the house.”

Reefer Revelation

The experience was a revelation for Parodneck, who previously specialized in obstetrics and gynecology. She switched gears, and turned her professional attention to becoming a medical cannabis specialist.

In July 2020, West died at the age of 89. But cannabis helped deliver him a somewhat manageable quality of life in his final years, relatively speaking, that would have otherwise proven elusive.

And now, Parodneck, who practices out of her Bedford home office, has joined a lawsuit filed by the Coalition for Access to Regulated & Safe Cannabis, challenging New York State regulators.

The association, which represents major medical cannabis operators and other applicants the group says are excluded from New York’s emerging market, claims state regulators violated the law by creating a limited licensing category designed to address social inequities.

What’s been the result?

“The rollout has been really slow,” said Parodneck, who co-authored a 2021 white paper on medical cannabis. “Farmers grew their crops this year on the expectation that New York had outlets to sell them.”

Green High

Due to various state failures, the doctor said consumer prices for legal cannabis have remained high with limited product options to choose from.

The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in State Supreme Court in Albany, alleges that the state’s Cannabis Control Board and Office of Cannabis Management overstepped their authority and subverted the intent of the Legislature by ignoring key provisions of the 2021 Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act, which legalized recreational marijuana.

With social justice in mind, regulators decided that the first retail dispensaries in New York should go to businesses owned by what the state describes as “justice-involved individuals.”

New York defines the term as someone or someone whose parent, spouse, child, legal guardian or dependent has been convicted of a marijuana-related offense in New York State before the March 31, 2021, statewide legalization bill was signed into law.

Represented by Feuerstein Kulick, a Manhattan law firm, the Coalition for Access to Regulated & Safe Cannabis maintains that regulators erred by focusing on “high-minded policymaking — a role that is reserved for our state’s elected officials,” David Feuerstein, the group’s counsel, stated in a press release.

“The state’s failure to act puts consumers at risk, restricts equity participation and denies communities of essential tax revenue,” Feuerstein remarked.

Justice for All

The Office of Cannabis Management’s public affairs press officer, Trivette Knowles, told me the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation, and indicated the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act, or MRTA, was designed with equity in mind.

“The Office of Cannabis Management is committed to the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act’s goals of including those impacted by the state’s enforcement of cannabis prohibition in the market that we are building,” Knowles replied to my questions in a prepared statement.

While Parodneck lauds the general goal of social justice, she said restrictively limiting who can obtain a license has produced disastrous results.

A prior plan to permit everyone to apply would have been far preferable, Parodneck contends.

“There’s room for everybody,” she said. “I mean, New York is a big state. People consume a lot of cannabis in New York.”

Meanwhile, illegal shops selling cannabis are popping up across the state, filling a void left by the bureaucratic delays, snafus and missteps.

“There are all these shops out there, quote, ‘selling cannabis,’ but it’s not regulated,” Parodneck said. “A lot of it has contaminants, and these are not products that sick people need or should be working with.”

Pot Luck 

In fact, earlier this month, Examiner Editor-in-Chief Martin Wilbur reported on Mount Pleasant’s plan to devise local legislation to impose harsher penalties against retail establishments that sell cannabis products in town after two convenience stores were caught violating the law.

“The illegal shops sell cannabis products to children because they have no worry of losing any license,” Police Chief Paul Oliva told Martin, which serves as further evidence of Parodneck’s point about the unintended consequences of the botched rollout.

To this day, cannabis also remains restricted as a Schedule I controlled substance by the federal government. The country’s official but factually inaccurate position about marijuana via the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) asserts there is “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.”

However, the DEA does acknowledge how “no deaths from overdose of marijuana have been reported.” The agency also hedges to a degree in some of its legal language to seemingly wink-wink a concession about the outdated nature of the federal government’s Schedule I drug designation of the plant.

“States have allowed the use of marijuana for medicinal purpose, it is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that has the federal authority to approve drugs for medicinal use in the U.S.,” the DEA explains.

New York’s CAURD program — which stands for the Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary License — stemmed from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Seeding Opportunity Initiative, unveiled last March, which announced the state’s intent to prioritize retailers with prior cannabis-related criminal offenses.

But the state’s effort to execute on its cannabis plan was already rife with legal hurdles.

Strong Convictions

Late last year, a lawsuit was filed against the state by Variscite NY One, a Michigan-based company. The suit emerged after New York State concluded that Variscite was ineligible for CAURD because the company is 51 percent owned by an individual who has no significant connection to the state and has a cannabis conviction in Michigan.

The suit’s central argument is that New York’s CAURD program rules run afoul of a clause prohibiting states from enacting laws that discriminate against or excessively burden interstate commerce.

Medical doctors like Parodneck, for their part, can refer patients to medicinal marijuana establishments like Etain in Yonkers or Vireo in White Plains. Despite the local options, online shopping for products is common.

But recreational retail shopping is a different ballgame.

On the state’s website, only five locations are listed so far as licensed recreational use retailers — three in New York City, one in Ithaca and one in Binghamton.

The state’s decision to address the brutal impact of the country’s “War on Drugs” does make sense in theory — and would be commendable if enacted without producing an unintended logjam.

Criminal History

Illegal drug policies, including the criminalization of marijuana, have a long and devastating history of disproportionately targeting and harming minorities through overly aggressive policing, mandatory minimum sentencing and mass incarceration.

Marijuana use is estimated to be about equal among racial groups yet Blacks are almost four times as likely to be arrested for possession, according to the ACLU.

One of the five licensed dispensaries listed on the state website is the confusingly-named Union Square Travel Agency: A Cannabis Store, which opened just last month.

Meanwhile, officials estimate there are now about 1,400 illegal shops without a license in New York City alone, despite efforts to crack down.

The Union Square establishment is affiliated with the Doe Fund, a nonprofit created to help the homeless and formerly incarcerated men.

“We are a New York birthed company that believes in the legalization of cannabis, and that the cannabis industry should help to repair the damage done by the War on Drugs,” the company explains on its website.

Store President Arana Hankin-Biggers was traveling in California last week and could not be reached for comment, said Stu Zakim, the organization’s public relations contact.

Smackdown

In January, Hochul had announced the first dispensary owned by an entrepreneur previously criminalized by cannabis prohibition.

Supported by the New York Social Equity Cannabis Investment Fund, a public-private partnership, Smacked LLC opened on Bleecker Street in Manhattan.

“This dispensary is the latest example of our efforts to build the most equitable and inclusive cannabis industry in the nation,” the governor stated at the time.

In the shadow of George Floyd’s horrifying murder in particular, and populist right-wing racial politics of the past half-dozen years more broadly, too many liberals have developed an immunity to self-reflection over the wisdom and detail of various progressive policies.

It’s as if many of Trump’s nakedly vile offenses have given some factions of the left a false sense of righteousness in unrelated legislative debates.

While that unintended consequence of Trumpism unfolds, a sizable portion of the right disingenuously dismisses any effort to tackle our very real racial issues as “woke” or “CRT.”

Cannabis politics reside inside this preposterous dynamic.

Pot Luck Party

I first started thinking about writing a deep-dive column on the cannabis issue after a conversation with Anthony Colasacco of Pour, a boutique bar and eatery in Mount Kisco.

Colasacco recently began to host occasional BYOC (bring your own cannabis) “flower hour” events at Pour. No alcohol is served.

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Legal growers donate product to the events, Colasacco said. It’s an opportunity for hemp farmers to meet people in the community, talk about their wares and sing the cannabis gospel.

Colasacco’s also been struck by the mainstreaming of the previously-vilified forbidden fruit among the suburban normie class.

“You can learn about some of the laws, what’s going on, learn about the plant,” Colasacco explained to me over the phone last week about the flower hour events. “And I mean, I had one woman, 75-year-old woman there with her daughter, and 90 percent of these people use it for their own form of medicinal use. Whether it’s to help with sleep, to help with pain, everybody talks about it now.”

Colasacco and I both started our local businesses at about the same time 15-plus years ago, in late 2007, and I’ve always admired the very distinct personality and atmosphere he’s able to cultivate at Pour — casually upscale without a whiff of pretension. That’s a tough needle to thread at a wine bar.

Anyway, as an entrepreneur, Colasacco possesses a keen sense of mixing passion with opportunity. By 2017, he started a CBD business. (CBD is a chemical found in marijuana and doesn’t contain THC, the ingredient that produces a high.)

Edible Arrangements

And now, like many others, Colasacco has his eyes set on the emerging market of legal recreational use of cannabis products that do include THC. He’s developing a THC honey gummy under the brand name Hive & High.

Another offering of Colasacco’s is a CBD honey gummy via his Hive & Hemp brand. He also markets a CBD product called Hudson Valley Hemp Honey.

“Obviously, there is a financial aspect that made me want to branch into the THC part of the cannabis industry but there is also the greater aspect which is being part of a movement that was a long time coming,” the Mount Kisco resident said. “As with hemp, cannabis has been vilified for almost a hundred years and the general public has been lied to and grossly misled about the dangers of cannabis while being fed the narrative that alcohol and prescription drugs are just fine. It’s shocking that so many people still buy into that narrative.”

But as many who’ve entered the space have learned the hard way, trying to achieve small business success in this big new industry will usually be, at best, a slow burn.

“So far it’s been quite a rollercoaster ride,” Colasacco told me. “The legal landscape is ever-changing and it’s a constant hassle of trying to stay compliant. Everything from losing credit card processing many times to the laws constantly changing, it’s never-ending.”

Also, don’t underestimate the potency of barstool politics. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who used to live in the neighborhood with then celebrity chef girlfriend Sandra Lee, became a frequent patron of Pour during his (ultimately doomed) gubernatorial tenure. Colasacco would often bend Cuomo’s ear on the cannabis topic to substantial effect, following up with e-mail dialogue.

Legalization was signed into law by Cuomo on March 31, 2021.

In or Out?

The issue of whether local governments wanted to permit dispensaries in their community’s business districts or not unfolded in late 2021. Municipal governments were required to opt out by the end of that year if they preferred to prohibit dispensaries within their borders.

Of Westchester’s 48 municipalities, 32 decided to opt out, according to an online tracker. Conversely, Cortlandt, Croton, Greenburgh, Hastings, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Ossining village and town, as well as Peekskill, Pelham, Pound Ridge, Sleepy Hollow, Tarrytown, White Plains, Yonkers, and the Town of Rye all decided to allow dispensaries by default, by not opting out.

“I would hate for us to paint a negative picture of marijuana,” then-Peekskill councilwoman Vanessa Agudelo remarked at the time. “We’re talking about legitimate businesses here. The money is there, and we would absolutely be leaving it on the table if we opt out. We can be making really good use of our money.”

In late 2021, during a trip with my wife to the Berkshires, I witnessed firsthand how quaint suburban and city downtowns can incorporate cannabis dispensaries in a way that enhances business districts. Or, more to the point, how they mostly play a neutral, non-controversial role on a day-to-day basis, not unlike your neighborhood liquor store.

Massachusetts legalized recreational use way back in 2016.

I understand the public pressure many local elected officials faced in opting out, worried about sending the wrong message in what can sometimes be a non-nuanced world. They also reasoned how there will be more than enough dispensaries in surrounding communities to fulfill demand.

But most communities made a small-minded choice, and one that’ll more than likely appear just as bizarre as banning beer from Main Street proprietors a generation from now, if not much sooner.

Sea to Shining Sea

Across America, 37 states, three territories and the District of Columbia now allow at least the medical use of cannabis products. That total was zero until 1996, when California became the first to legalize for medicinal purposes.

Here in New York, there is a local tax for consumers on the sale of cannabis products by retailers — 4 percent of the products’ price. The tax is then distributed to local governments based on where the dispensary is located. A quarter of the revenue goes to the county while 75 percent goes to the cities, town or villages within the county.

There’s also a 9 percent state tax.

That said, there is a legislative effort underway to overhaul the existing taxing structure.

With the statewide Apr. 1 budget deadline looming, a repeal bill was unveiled earlier this month by Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes (D-Buffalo) and state Sen. Jeremy Cooneybill (D-Rochester) that is designed to simplify the system by increasing the tax from 9 to 16 percent while removing requirements that link taxing policy to the total amount of THC content in cannabis products.

Meanwhile, the New York State Cannabis Control Board and the Office of Cannabis Management announced earlier this month it would hike the number of adult-use licenses in the state from 150 to 300.

So far, the office has reportedly received about 900 applications for licenses and has issued 66 provisional ones.

‘Moral Rudder’

State Sen. Peter Harckham (D-Lewisboro) comes to the issue of drugs and regulation from a deeply personal place.

In 2020, when he announced his support for legalizing recreational marijuana, he first acknowledged his own struggles with substance abuse.

Harckham spokesman Tom Staudter told me in a phone conversation last week that many fellow policymakers were waiting on the senator when the debate over legalizing recreational marijuana unfolded. The local legislator held deep reservations because of his background with what Staudter characterized as a “substance abuse disorder.” (He has been in recovery over the past 36 years.)

But once Harckham, serving as chair of the Senate Committee on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, came around on legalization, he served as a “moral rudder” on the issue. His embrace of legalization provided many colleagues with the cover they needed to comfortably follow his lead.

Yet before concluding legalization was the right path, Harckham wanted to get beyond the abstract policy debates and see how legal pot played out in the real world. He visited a trio of Massachusetts towns and communicated with a variety of elected officials in those communities.

He learned how the economic benefits for New York could be significant.

Harckham believes the “timeline for our cannabis rollout needs to be the priority,” according to Staudter, who also said the senator wants to ensure the system be “set up in a timely and efficient matter to acquire the much-needed revenue we are counting on.”

Modern Day Prohibitionists

As for anyone who remains passionately opposed to legal weed in general, I might just respectfully suggest you consider whether you’re also for resurrecting the prohibition of alcohol, and if you’re prepared to protest outside the doors of local liquor stores (not to mention your community pharmacy) calling for criminal bans of potentially lethal substances.

In fact, for anyone who believes in criminalizing substances that people might abuse, it would make infinitely more sense to start with addictive and dangerous alcohol and opioids well before nature’s hemp plants.

It’s important to emphasize how favoring legalization isn’t at all akin to minimizing concerns about the potential abuse of various substances, whether legal or illegal.

Unlike some proponents of legalization, I personally agree with the notion of how use of marijuana (especially by troubled adolescents) can sometimes serve as a “gateway” to abuse of dangerous drugs. But acknowledging that problem in no way means criminalization provides the solution.

“Legalization did not impact adolescent use prevalence,” states a journal article published on the National Institutes of Health website, citing research of California and Washington state.

Whether it’s an increase in teen use or a spike in impaired driving, there’s no compelling evidence to suggest that criminalizing cannabis mitigates any of those real issues. In fact, those problems can be exacerbated by broader black markets.

Not everyone agrees. Organizations like Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), for example, correctly note how legalizing marijuana in a state doesn’t produce an end to all illegal markets.

It’s also worth noting how police sometimes use the illegality of marijuana as a tool to make arrests and then investigate more significant crimes, a fact cited by legalization foes and advocates alike.

Huh?

But as much as I tried to keep an open mind when researching SAM’s viewpoint, too many of the organization’s arguments simply fall flat.

“Alcohol is not legal because it is safe; it is legal because most of Western civilization has used the drug for thousands of years,” the group states on its website when trying to debunk the alcohol prohibition/cannabis prohibition analogy. “By contrast, marijuana has always been used by a small minority of the population.”

What kind of logic is that?

All you really need to do is remember those high school history lessons about alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s, and draw the unmistakable parallels.

“We are making every effort to put the bootleggers out of business,” County Detective Armstrong said in a 1928 article in The New York Times about the efforts of local law enforcement officials to crack down on illegal liquor sales here in Westchester.

We know how that went.

A hundred years from now, you don’t want to sound like this generation’s outdated alcohol prohibitionists.

As for Parodneck, the local cannabis doctor said the bottom line is about public policy that best serves public health.

“I think giving (social equity) licenses is great, but the way the MRTA was structured, it was applications for everyone, not just social equity,” she concluded. “Everybody is supposed to be able to apply and we need these regulated shops.”