Axel Bernabe, a top official at the state Office of Cannabis Management, announced on Tuesday that he will exit his role as the agency’s chief of staff and senior policy director. The move comes at a pivotal moment for the rollout of New York’s recreational market.
Bernabe helped craft the social justice-oriented licenses, known as the Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary — or CAURD — program, that launched New York’s adult-use marijuana industry. The program now faces legal challenges that have created financial uncertainty for participants. He also worked on a set of regulations for the general licensing of marijuana businesses that were approved at a meeting of the state’s Cannabis Control Board Tuesday.
At that meeting, Chris Alexander, the executive director of the Office of Cannabis Management, praised Bernabe for his policy work and said that with the release of the general licensing regulations, it was a natural moment for Bernabe to step down – although regulators acknowledged at other points in the meeting that policy revisions will be ongoing.
“Now that we’ve put forward the regulations to go final, his work is done and it’s time to hand off the baton to somebody else to continue,” Alexander said, adding that Bernabe had been his “brother throughout all of this.”
New York officials have been ambitious in their effort to launch the legal marijuana industry with small businesses, rather than large companies, as many other states do. But the rollout has so far been mired in setbacks, and only about two dozen of the 463 dispensaries licensed so far have opened since the adult-use market launched in December.
In his own comments, Bernabe acknowledged that his role has not been an easy one.
“This has undoubtedly been the most humbling experience of my professional career,” Bernabe said. “It’s been the most challenging, bar none… It’s also been a privilege to be able to contribute substantially to the vision for an…
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