The Normalcy and Complexity of the Future Recreational Cannabis Industry in New York
(Note: This story was first uploaded in May 2019)
When Colton Welch, a rising senior at SUNY Morrisville, applies for a job soon, he already knows what employers will be searching for. In his field, he needs approximately four to five years of experience, and must have passion and the necessary skills to perform at his job. Ultimately, Welch’s field lacks any difference from others, except the legality of it.
Welch, who is enrolled in Morrisville’s cannabis studies minor, said he wants to work in cannabis cultivation and optimization as a greenhouse engineering consultant.
“I interned at Intergrow Greenhouses and I got a lot of experience there seeing how the greenhouse industry is and growing tomatoes is the same as growing marijuana,” Welch, who majors in renewable energy, said. “I am doing experiments with hydroponics and seeing what’s best for tomatoes and it’s mainly a test for the cannabis when it gets legalized.”
Welch is one of the many New Yorkers paying close attention to the status of cannabis legalization in New York State. But unlike some who are looking forward to legalization so they can roll a joint and pass it around with a group of friends for an afternoon “smoke sesh,” Welch and others are looking to make a profit out of recreational cannabis legalization.
In Governor Andrew Cuomo’s State of the State Address in January, the three-term governor touted the assets recreational cannabis brings to New York’s economy. Although legalization efforts were halted in Albany in April, a new bill was introduced in May to legalize the recreational use of the polarizing plant–a move that many experts believe is inevitable.
Once recreational marijuana is legalized in New York, the state will be opening the door to a fast-growing industry. 64,389 full-time legal cannabis jobs were added in the U.S. in 2018, according to a jobs report by Leafly, the largest cannabis website in the world.
But despite the coverage of the industry as a brand-new, never-before-seen entity, experts on the industry and those who work in it describe it as a standard business that only distinguishes itself due to public policy.
“It’s honestly just another business,” Welch said. “In my program, my professors say it’s just another craft. It has all this hype behind it but when it comes down to it, it is just another crop. We’ve seen that the skill sets you need for marijuana is similar to any craft in the green house industry.”
“There are idiosyncrasies that pop up because of the illegality of the drug in terms of marketing and banking, but that’s the only thing that distinguishes it from any other industry,” said Eli McVey, research editor for Marijuana Business Daily. “It’s no different from any other industry. Employers ask, ‘Will you show up to work? Can you present yourself professionally? Do you have a previous body of work to position you well?’”
And if a vocal weed enthusiast attempts to get a job and break into the industry, their chances of receiving the job offer is low, as with any other business.
“I would say any candidate that is trying to improve their job prospects by making it implicit or explicit how much they enjoy cannabis, that probably won’t help their chances,” McVey said.
So, what would help the chances of someone looking to break into the business? In Leafly‘s report, Karson Humiston, founder and CEO of Vangst, the leading recruiting platform for cannabis professionals, suggested, among other things, that aspiring cannabis professionals should become more flexible, expect and embrace change, and be prepared to wear multiple hats.
“Most cannabis companies have fewer than 50 employees, so all team members are expected to roll up their sleeves and do what it takes to build the company. If you’re someone who doesn’t do well without a very structured and rigid work environment, the cannabis industry isn’t for you,” Humiston, who graduated from St. Lawrence University in Camden, NY, said.
As for actual jobs to expect, there are a variety of career opportunities legal recreational cannabis can bring to New York. For an example, budtenders and trimmers, which are lower paying jobs, but allows individuals to sell and work closely with the product. They make approximately $13 per hour.
Higher wage jobs includes director of cultivation, who “oversees all cultivation operations to ensure the production of compliant and high-quality cannabis.” Directors of cultivation can make up to $250,000 a year, aiding the cannabis industry’s median paycheck, which is 11 percent higher than the $52,863 U.S. median salary.
Randy Robinson, a journalist who covers marijuana news for VICE and the Snoop Dogg-owned digital media platform, Merry Jane, explained a few fun, unique jobs offered by cannabis legalization.
“I would say product testers, a job usually done in-house, have to have cool responsibilities,” Robinson, who uses they/them/their pronouns, said. “When companies come out with new products, there’s testing of the new products and that’s the product testers’ role. Cannabis breeders probably have the coolest jobs. They’re related to cultivators but they have specific role. They plant seeds, clones and grow. Breeders are trying to design a specific plant with specific qualities. That is cool because they create new plants.”
Robinson also touched on joint rollers and weed scientists.
“The federal government even has a job opening for that, people who roll joints,” they said. “One last one: Weed scientists. They are basically bio technicians that are making bacteria, among other things. It’s a legitimate profession. It was a fringe thing before, but now it’s taking seriously.”
However, a majority of cannabis jobs that would arrive in New York are in retail, according to McVey.
“Most of the jobs are in retail,” he said. “For example, a lot of hemp products are sold in regular retails… but in recreational marijuana, you’re essentially creating a new class of retail store. So that’s where roughly 50% of jobs are going to come from is in that retail sector. Just running that retail store operations and just like any other state, there will be some amount of jobs in cultivation and some will be higher paid than others, like master cultivator or someone with a degree of high knowledge can make somewhere in six figures, whereas a lot of retail jobs will be minimum wage or not that much higher than minimum wage in New York. So it’ll be a lot like what you see in other states. New York’s market is not going to be California big, but it will be one of the larger marijuana markets in the nation.”
Legalized recreational pot could create about 30,700 jobs in New York, according to a Rockefeller Institute of Government study. With job growth being a major asset of legalization, along with the expected total economic output of $4.1 billion, it begs the question: Who is taking a head start and planting the seeds for a successful recreational cannabis run? The main industry in New York looking to partake in the eventual “green rush” is–somewhat unsurprisingly–the medical marijuana industry.
“Every medical manufacturer there,” said McVey. “They did not get into that market to sale medical cannabis, they’re there for the recreational industry.”
Vireo Health, a North American medical cannabis company that has two facilities in New York, has been heavily lobbying for recreational legalization, mainly for the purpose of getting into it themselves.
The company recently acquired a Massachusetts recreational pot business, Mayflower Botanicals Inc. Vireo officials described the deal to Lohud as part of their plans to advocate for and sell legalized recreational marijuana.
“There’s a few reasons why those who started off in the medical industry are moving into recreational,” Robinson began. “Medical products are grown under the same conditions but when you sell it through a medical dispensary, it sells at a lower price than it would in a recreational dispensary. Also the taxes are lower in medical, so the government doesn’t like medical weed for that reason, they’re missing out on revenue. That’s probably the main reason, but also with legal recreational you have more access. You don’t need only people who are registered as patients because anyone above 21 can just walk into your store and buy your weed. It’s much easier to bring in revenue that way. It’s also — and this is probably a case by case thing — I feel like a lot of medical operators are now feeling a little uneasy because the FDA is talking about stepping into this to start regulating it, so I’ve noticed a lot of marijuana producers are being very careful with their language now and they’re being very careful to not make any health claims about cannabis.”
Matt Best, director of client services at Medicine Man Technologies, a consulting firm based in Denver, CO that helps cannabis businesses get off their feet, shared a similar sentiment regarding recreational marijuana’s advantage over medical.
“It is an easier process,” Best said. “You have to be 21, but you can come in from any state and come shop in our dispensaries, it’s an easy process and becomes a bigger market more quickly. With medical marijuana, you need to be an instate resident, you need a receipt from your doctor, a medical reason and even more steps. So medical is a smaller market, so that equates on a job basis, there’s more recreational jobs in a state like Colorado in recreational because more of a market. In the medical marijuana space, we saw a economic windfall as recreational became more popular.”
New York’s lack of medical marijuana facilities is one of the reasons some experts believe recreational marijuana will not succeed in the state.
Judy Cervini, former dispensary technician and current receptionist, has a strong stance on marijuana in New York. Cervini worked at Compassionate Cares Dispensary in Bethel, Connecticut for three years and was the 22nd person in the state to be licensed to dispense. She sees the cannabis industry as a massive area for entrepreneurship and job opportunities, but doesn’t think New York is there quite yet and that is due to the lack of growers in the state.
“New York is a failing program and it is failing big time,” she said. “The number one reason is the growers. They started the program and did not have anything grown yet. And as they are getting it grown, it is not passing the correct testing that makes it allowed to be sold. Whether it has toxins, or too many chemicals or mold spores.”
“If you go online and look up in Queens or Albany, and go to one of their dispensaries you will see they only have twelve products available,” Cervini continued. “The Botanist, a dispensary in New York, only has a few products on the menu. Then, if you go on to Compassionate Cares’ site in Connecticut you can take a look at all the products we have, it is crazy. It shows what New York needs to do in order to be very successful. New York’s issue is growing, they need to get proper growers in there who can make the proper medicines to help people.”
Best shared a similar sentiment, explaining that heavy regulation disadvantages New York.
“Their medical program is very new and heavily regulated more than you see in western states,” said Best, who believes that it is important for the state’s medical program to grow and assist patients before graduating to recreational marijuana.
However, Robinson, who resides in Colorado, believes that New York is in an unique position to succeed due to the tourism to the state.
“So New York is a special case,” they said. “I will say it’s a lot like Colorado in many ways, there’s a real big tourism industry. People around the world are constantly flying to New York City, I would say that alone will keep business coming in for recreational weed because somebody from Qatar flying into New York City who doesn’t have connections there, he can just walk into a pot shop and get some weed. Super easy. And I think for that reason alone, New York will have a pretty stable revenue by the end of this but other states that don’t have quite the same global tourism industry, I think they will struggle a little more.”
Some expect the cannabis industry to have a different impact on different areas of New York. How the plant is grown and sold in rural Buffalo is not the same as an urban area such as New York City or White Plains.
“So New York cannot grow marijuana all year-round, like you’d see in parts of California, so your growing takes place in greenhouses and indoors,” McVey explained. “And I would not expect–since it takes up a lot of space–cultivators would want to grow and set up shop in the greater New York area because the price of real estate will be so high relative to somewhere else like Buffalo, where if you’re growing indoors, there’s no difference in growing indoor Buffalo and growing indoor somewhere else. But I would imagine you’d see more cultivation businesses set up in areas where real estate is cheaper and you’ll have a higher concentration of retail stores in rural versus urban because the number of people. So, that might be something to look for.”
One commonality in the state’s rural areas and its urban cities, however, is the existence of black market dealers. Some have asked what happens to dealers once recreational cannabis is legalized. Welch believes that the black market will always exist in the Empire state, but soon residents will choose legal dispensaries, even if their prices are higher.
“There’s always going to be a black market especially with the prices higher,” Welch said. “The black market doesn’t have regulation and won’t be checked. With legal cannabis, however, people will know what they’re doing. A dispensary is more official and it’s good for adult users because in the industry, some forget that users of cannabis are older people dealing with pain and they don’t smoke it but they definitely use, like, lotions, they are a big share of the market. They are buying products. What will happen, I think, is people will pay the extra money, so they can trust it and it’s more convenient just going to the store.”
So if dealers lose their clientele to dispensaries, will they jump into the legal industry? McVey doubts it.
“I don’t think that black market dealer is going to open a dispensary,” he said. “I think a black market dealer will slowly or not erode over time as the market will prove to provide higher quality and higher selection and better prices, but we don’t know how quickly that will happen. In California, supply issues and high prices have kept the black and gray market alive and well. That could be the case in New York. But for example, in somewhere like Oregon, some legislators would say the black market has almost been–if not entirely–eliminated because like I said, someone growing five-ten plants in the black market, they’re not going to be able to provide the quality, affordability and selection as a licensed recreational marijuana business will be able to.”
However, those who have been able to break into the business are women. When the recreational marijuana industry launched, it was seen as a safe business for women to partake in. Nevertheless, only 17 percent of female-identifying cannabis employees work in executive or director positions today, according to Forbes.
Celia Farrell, a plant scientist and strategic adviser for dispensaries in Hawaii’s medical dispensary program, said the lack of diversity in the industry needs to be repaired.
“We’re seriously lacking diversity,” Farrell, who moved to Hawaii from New York five years ago, said. “There are only two Hawaiians that work for my company here in Hawaii. And I’m the only female who works in cultivation. To believe in a future I need to see more diversity, more people of color, more women.”
Although legalization of recreational marijuana has been viewed as a social justice issue that will positively impact those in poverty, the individuals profiting from it are primarily richer, white men.
“They tend to be wealthy,” said Robinson. “To start a cannabis company, you need a $1 million. So, that barrier of entry alone tends to favor white men. There’s some truths that men are taking over, but men have always dominated the industry. It was never female-dominated. We did a lot of work on the activist level to promote women in the industry and as a new industry, it’s easier for women and minorities to get into it and that’s something unique to cannabis, but it’s always kind of been an all-boys club. But as it becomes more mainstream, it’s not surprising to me that they’re taking over even more now.”
And as those entrepreneurs take over, Robinson notices the differences between them and those who grew plants in their home.
“I would say a lot of newcomers now don’t have that background, they were not black marketers,” they said. “These were people who came from Fortune 500 or Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. A lot of them actually don’t really know what they’re doing. They understand business well but they don’t understand the plant or culture, so there’s a bit of a disconnect there.”
However, they believe entrepreneurs will catch up in due time.
“But I think that’s something that will be resolved over the next few years and they’ll catch up fast,” Robinson stated.
Robinson has also seen a difference in marketing techniques as the cannabis industry goes more mainstream.
“I remember at the very beginning, the advertisements look like graffiti almost, like the type you’d see on hip hop albums and in the last couple of years, there’s been a dramatic switch from that type of marketing — which I’d consider counterculture marketing and now they’re doing lifestyle marketing,” they said. “So now you’ll see really clean model-esque people in business suits hitting a vape pen or they’re at a cocktail party eating a pre-roll, that’s a specific strategy geared at a particular type of demographic and that’s not something I saw even five years ago. You’re seeing cannabis companies advertise on billboards, some very creative ways to pull it off. I see it on YouTube, but they still have restrictions on where they can advertise.”
One of the warnings opponents of recreational marijuana, such as Kevin Sabet, co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, argue is “Big Tobacco” getting into the industry. Robinson said that although they often disagree with Sabet, but they believed he was right on the prediction of tobacco companies transitioning into the cannabis industry.
“Tobacco companies are seeing money in this, they know that people are turning away from cigarettes, it is not hip or cool anymore to smoke, so now they want to jump on the new thing to smoke, which is weed, and it looks like they’re transitioning their products,” Robinson said.
Along with tobacco companies, young people see the legal cannabis industry as a place to flourish. A few students at Pace University’s Pleasantville campus weighed in on whether or not they would join the business.
But regardless of who attempts to profit from the green rush, whether it be one individual or a big business, once they go through the multiple steps of opening up a dispensary, their chances of making money is high.
“How I like to identify it is much like Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks, that whoever can do the business should do it,” said Daniel DeCarlo, pharmacy dispensary manager at Compassionate Cares in Connecticut. “Right now, it’s really easy once you have the money to open up a dispensary. It is pretty easy in terms of if you can follow all the regulations to make money as long as you are not operating a shady business, you are legit you are doing things correctly, once you get your operations up, this is a high demand product going forward with a high demand competition.”
