A longtime casual weed dealer tries to navigate New York's legal cannabis market, with mixed success.
the cannabis trade began in a middle school bathroom. Dime bags led to ounces, which led to pounds, and in my early twenties, my partner “SOME” and I were doing Canadian border crossings and road trips from Northern California toIt was a side hustle that quickly became a main hustle when I realized that journalism and documentary filmmaking were not-for-profit endeavors. Some people have a trust fund — I had a weed fund. It afforded me the ability to create art at my own leisure.
Traditionally, when people refer to “indica,” they are speaking of plants descending from India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan — mountainous regions with long winters that, over millennia, have favored “wide-leaf cultivars,” known for their higher narcotic content to induce sedation and aid in hibernation.
Joanne Wilson, the owner of Gotham, waits for me in the center of the dispensary. A commanding and vibrant 62-year-old mother of three, she’s a legendary angel investor who’s aided in the launch of more than 150 companies. She’s also a powerful pothead who’s been smoking weed daily since she was 15. As the grip of the pandemic waned, Wilson contemplated taking a break from work, but the burgeoning cannabis market proved too enticing. “I live for world domination.
I check out Gotham’s products — by law, licensed New York shops can only sell New York-grown weed — and sure enough, it seems they don’t have a single 90-day, equatorial narrow-leaf cultivar, let alone an original haze, New York’s legendary strain.
The Elfands flagrantly did interviews on local news, challenging New York state as they operated without licenses. “License for what?” John asks me. “The state is clearly in violation of the United States Constitution, and we won’t be restricted by their bullshit legislation. It is impossible for a state to be in any sense of the word ‘legal’ — under the supremacy clause, the federal government rules everything, and cannabis is illegal. It’s a fictitious legalization.
John Elfand, six-foot-one with a slicked-back gray ponytail and glasses, is an urban hippie gangster. Standing at the front counter, he plays host to a procession of dealers flaunting their wares for inspection, assessing the quality of the buds and offering vague assurances of future contact. After the dealers exit, John hobbles toward me, extending his hand. He looks me up and down, deciding if he can trust me.
Tremaine Wright, chairwoman of New York’s Office of Cannabis Management, says of Empire’s business approach, “It’s not fair if somebody is operating outside of the collective agreement for us to legalize and regulate cannabis and build standards around the products that we’re offering to our customers. Illicit marketplaces confuse consumers.”
I race over to an Empire location in Chelsea to witness the standoff. In what they’re calling a “routine inspection,” NYPD officers assisting New York state tax agents have assembled in front of the store. The state officials do not have a search warrant. John denies their entry. The standoff lasts seven hours. Eventually, the tax authorities force their way in, seizing products.
Beyond the grand double doors lies a 12,000-square-foot warehouse teeming with workers devoted to the meticulous boxing of cannabis products, each destined for Gotham and around 130 other licensed emporiums Flowerhouse serves. “This place is our linchpin,” Gupta says, “the conduit through which we take delivery, process, and dispatch to NYC.
I try to steer the conversation toward my idea: growing 90-day haze. “Do you know anything about weed, man?!” Gupta says incredulously. He says it could take way more than 90 days to grow haze under these conditions. Instead, he offers a more practical and cost-effective compromise — a sativa hybrid. As we part ways, I know that I will not be doing business with Flowerhouse.
He’s right. I reach out to a handful of other legal growers who all seem to giggle at the notion of growing a 90-day, equatorial narrow-leaf cultivar. The market is experiencing so much turmoil at present, there is no room for experimentation. By September, my personal stash of haze has been depleted for the first time in years.
Kev rolls up his sleeves, revealing a faded tattoo of a leprechaun, an overflowing beer mug in his hand. If you gave Kev a green buckle hat, he could play a fine leprechaun here at the end of the rainbow, where he spends most days under the lights. “My mom doesn’t know what I do,” he says. “I guess it’s part embarrassment. I’m still of the mind that it’s subversive.” In fact, Kev tells me that in the past two decades, he has only allowed two other people to see his grow.
Conbud’s Delancey Street building once served as a bank, its vaults brimming with cash. Today, that same vault has been repurposed to store a treasure of a different kind: legal New York cannabis. The store is adorned with stencils of Mike Tyson, remnants of a recent cannabis collaboration. “I tried to be slick back in the day and beat the government, but the system is always going to trump the streets,” Coss says, staring at the two unlicensed gray-market shops across the street.
“We’re better off sitting on the sidelines until New York figures its shit out!” White Boy Kev tells me as we hit the Lincoln Tunnel. We’re riding in his white Jeep Grand Cherokee, descending under the Hudson River, listening to classic Cam’ron as the light transitions from gray skies into the murky tunnel fluorescents.
We shake hands, like black-market legacy operators do, hoping to have our product in stores by late 2024. We celebrate over a joint on the roof of Desai’s 50-story Jersey City apartment building, taking in the NYC skyline from the other side of the river. I have covered every one of those city blocks by bicycle. I’ll be back there when New York gets its act together. It’s not a race.At the end of April, I visit Ralph Elfand in his Midtown hospice.
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