Happy holidays to all who celebrate April 20 — a day in which the city comes together to smoke a little weed and chill out. And this year’s 4/20 observance is particularly joyous, as it’s the first year that New Yorkers will be able to buy from fully legal state-sanctioned marijuana dispensaries.
Although New York legalized recreational weed in 2021, the state Cannabis Control Board only just approved its first round of dispensary licenses — reserved for those with prior marijuana-related offenses or those who have been impacted by the war on drugs — in November of last year. Since then, the state has doubled the amount of available retail licenses in an effort to widen the legal cannabis market.
As of Wednesday, there were eight dispensary storefronts fully opened in New York — five in NYC and three upstate. The city’s legal shops include Housing Works Cannabis at 750 Broadway, Smacked Village at 144 Bleecker St., Union Square Travel Agency at 62 E. 13th St., Good Grades at 162-03 Jamaica Ave. and Dazed at 33 Union Square West.
And while some boroughs, including the Bronx, don’t yet have physical recreational cannabis dispensaries, the Bronx Times set out to ask experts about what people in NYC should know before they light up this 4/20.
Consumers
Before getting into the weeds of weed, it’s important to understand the evolution of the marijuana user, said John Kagia, the director of policy for the New York State Office of Cannabis Management (OCM).
“There has been this kind of long-standing caricature of the cannabis consumer being somebody who is sitting stoned on a couch, eating cheetos and watching ‘The Simpsons,’” he said.
But according to research the state has conducted, Kagia said some of the primary reasons people choose to smoke or take an edible are for relaxation, stress relief and anxiety reduction, sleep quality and pain management.
“Five of the top six reasons are health and wellness related,” he…
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