Pot Lots Part 1: Birth of a Marijuana Market

Tracy Alloway (0:02)

We're at Washington Square Park on a warm February day. Pigeons are cooing, dogs are barking, there's a guy playing piano, lots of people just walking around and talking.

Joe Weisenthal (0:13)

And then there's the weed. Everywhere you look, there are small fold up tables that have been set up, which people are using to sell cannabis.

Tracy Alloway (0:19)

There are packets of edibles, flour, pre-roll, all being sold out in the open. And people are smoking out in the open too.

There's a couple of NYU students that just bought and are smoking on a bench right now.

Jason Wilde (0:33)

Yeah, so we're seniors, so we have jobs lined up in finance, actually, after graduation.

Tracy Alloway (0:39)

So when you first started at NYU, was Pot decriminalized yet?

Jason Wilde (0:43)

No, it was decrimped.

Tracy Alloway (0:46)

But people weren't selling at tables like they are now.

Jason Wilde (0:48)

No, it wasn't open, but like, I mean, here, you can always kind of...

Joe Weisenthal (0:57)

Welcome to Potlots, our deep dive into what's going on with the legalized marijuana market in New York. We'll spend three episodes exploring what the birth of this market looks like, how the business is setting up, and finally how New York is trying to address the social inequities of the past.

It's been a little over three years since recreational cannabis was decriminalized in the state. Lawmakers legalized the drug for adults 21 and older and expunged the records of thousands of people with pot-related convictions. But there is still some tension between the illicit market for weed and the new legal one. New York passed a first-of-its-kind law in March 2021 to allow people with previous convictions for cannabis-related offenses to get a foothold in the new legal industry, one where there will be licensed shops selling weed.

Tracy Alloway (1:41)

And what New York is trying to do is different to places like California and many other states that have already legalized recreational pot. The idea is not just to go some way towards addressing past social inequities, but also to make sure that New York's legal weed landscape develops more organically with lots of small-scale growers and retailers rather than a few big dominant companies.

Joe Weisenthal (2:03)

It's a big change for a city that was heavily impacted by things like the war on drugs and stop and frisk. But there's still a big question mark about how this new market for legal weed will work exactly.

Here in Washington Square Park, you could see the issue pretty clearly. Weed is supposed to be sold by licensed shops. You have to go to the state to apply to open one. But so far, there's not much appetite to crack down on unlicensed sellers. No one wants to be arresting people for selling weed illegally after the state just decriminalized it.

SPEAKER_4 (2:35)

They can if you ain't got no ID. If you ain't got no ID, yeah, they're gonna arrest you, make sure you know who you are. And then after that, they leave you alone. But if you got ID, they just run you a joint and whatever, just tell you to pack up a leave, you know what I mean? This ain't killing nobody, baby, come on, you got liquor stores, man.

Come on, you white folks, get bread, man. Let us get some money, man.

Joe Weisenthal (2:56)

That's one of the cannabis sellers in Washington Square Park.

We're not gonna use his real name for obvious reasons, so we'll just call him Charlie. Charlie has a small fold of table and is selling packets of flour and pre-rolled joints. And we asked him if he ever gets in trouble with the police for all that he's doing because selling pot without a license is still illegal.

SPEAKER_4 (3:15)

Everybody need weed to smoke, man.

Everybody need a little weed to smoke to calm down, you know. It ain't a bad thing.

Tracy Alloway (3:22)

All of this has left New York in a weird gray area. People are excited about a business that they think might be worth billions, but there's still a lot of uncertainty over how exactly this will all work and how much this new market will actually be worth.

Joe Weisenthal (3:36)

In this special Odd Lots series, we're gonna be taking a closer look at the birth of a new industry. And if you walk around this city, you're gonna see and smell and possibly even participate in the results of this new legalization.

Tracy Alloway (3:48)

Yeah, that's kind of what happened to Charlie. He says he came back to New York after being in Atlanta for a few years. He saw what was going on in places like Washington Square Park, and he jumped right in.