New York Medical Cannabis Operators Owe The State Millions They Claim They Can’t Afford

New York’s surviving medical cannabis operators want to get out of paying a $15 million “conversion fee” that’s supposed to be required to enter the state’s rapidly growing adult-use marijuana market.

Four major multistate operators with vertically integrated medical licenses, called “registered organizations” (RO), have submitted partial payments and are serving to adult-use customers. However, they are pleading for a break, claiming that current market conditions render the fee – set at a time when cannabis company valuations were at an all-time high and before medical cannabis customers fled to adult-use – far too high to be feasible.

But state law still requires the fee, which was also supposed to go toward a $200 million fund officials promised to small cannabis operators for startup costs. That money never materialized – and to give the MSOs relief now would be unfair, small operators say.

“Most of us were left to fight for the same expensive real estate as the MSOs, but with none of the state funding we were promised,” Osbert Orduña, founder and CEO of The Cannabis Place, a retailer with a location in Queens, told MJBizDaily.

A spokesperson for the New York Medical Cannabis Association, which represents the MSOs with medical licenses in Albany, declined to comment for this story. A spokesperson for the state Office of Cannabis Management also declined to comment on the record.

To Read The Rest Of This Article On MJ Biz Daily, Click Here

The post New York Medical Cannabis Operators Owe The State Millions They Claim They Can’t Afford appeared first on Marijuana Retail Report – News and Information for Cannabis Retailers.