skip to Main Content
Selling Marijuana on Tribal Lands, a Legal Gray Area in New York

With New York state officials slow to establish regulations, members of the St. Regis Mohawks have raced ahead, opening a number of dispensaries for recreational marijuana.

It doesn’t take long after entering the St. Regis Mohawk reservation to see a glimpse of the future of marijuana sales in the state of New York.

The reservation — a sovereign tribal land in the eyes of the government — currently holds the distinction of hosting New York’s only overt outlets for recreational sales of the drug: nearly a dozen dispensaries offering an array of joints, gummies, edibles and tinctures, which imbue this far-flung, northern-border territory with a shaggy, entrepreneurial energy.

In front of one dispensary, Best Budz, a smiling, neon-green wavy-tube monster welcomes customers to a salesroom housed in a shipping container; another, Six Bears, offers 24-hour-a-day sales, complete with a drive-through window and a work-in-progress “V.I.P. lounge.”

All of which is legal, according to the state, if exceedingly remote: The nearest big city is Montreal, about 70 miles to the northeast, and even visitors from upstate cities like Syracuse face a drive of three hours or more.

But while New York City customers might prefer closer locales in Massachusetts (where recreational marijuana sales began in 2018), the proprietors of the reservation’s new weed dispensaries say they are doing a steady business, capitalizing on delays from state leaders who have been slow to adopt regulations to govern the adult-use sale of the drug. Possession and use of marijuana in limited amounts for recreational use became legal in New York in late March. [Read More @ The NY Times]

This Post Has 0 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Stories

CDTFA Cannabis Creditor: Myths and Truths

By Hilary Bricken, Attorney at Husch Blackwell Dealing with creditors is never a fun experience. However, some creditors are more severe than others, especially in the cannabis industry. One of…

If FL Supreme Court approves cannabis ballot language, will voters go for recreational weed or not?

The long wait on whether Floridians will get a chance to vote to legalize recreational cannabis for adults 21 and older is almost over, as the Florida Supreme Court is…

Missouri strips marijuana licenses connected to company accused of predatory behavior

Missouri’s health department on Wednesday stripped two coveted marijuana micro-licenses tied to an out-of-state company that had been accused of predatory practices and had listed the licenses for resale. The…

Dug In: Big Island Grown’s Deep Cannabis Roots

Big Island Grown (BIG) is a vertically integrated cannabis company based in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii County, on the Big Island of Hawaii, whose reach now extends to several islands in the…

More Categories

Back To Top
×Close search
Search