Industry stakeholders are alleging New York's Office of Cannabis Management – the agency charged with overseeing the state's legal cannabis market – is using enforcement powers to retaliate against those who speak out about its part in the flawed rollout of the new marketplace.
Audio recordings, emails, and social media posts, along with more than a dozen interviews with business owners and others, evidence why these operators are scared to talk – they're afraid to lose or be denied a license or experience "selective enforcement."
"It seems we want to enforce on people who speak out," said Ruben Lindo, an entrepreneur and founder of multistate cannabis brand Blak Mar Farms. And OCM leadership is "doing nothing about it," he said.
Though the worries have been an open secret within the Empire State's cannabis industry for more than a year, the circumstances around the OCM's first recall of a cannabis product and what happened after are now bringing these concerns front and center.
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