Five New York Medical Marijuana Manufacturers Approved, But None Will Serve Brooklyn
New York just took a huge step towards making medical marijuana accessible to patients across the state — just not in Brooklyn or Staten Island.
Five organizations licensed by the State Department of Health to manufacture and dispense medical marijuana in New York were announced last Friday, July 31, but of the 25 manufacturing and dispensary locations listed, not a single one is set to open in the southernmost boroughs of New York City.
This means that the proposed site at 425 Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn will not be opening up by the start of the new year after all. It is unknown as yet what will go up at the site, a 3,000-square-foot, second floor space which was was leased by PalliaTech in June.
Another proposed site was in Sunset Park’s Industry City, applied for by a company called Mindful Medical.
Below is the list of approved manufacturing and dispensary locations (Queens and Manhattan will each get two!):
Only one of the five companies, Bloomfield Industries Inc., will manufacture the medical pot from New York City. The drug will be manufactured in Queens and dispensed at locations in Manhattan, Nassau, Onondaga, and Erie counties.
The medical marijuana program is expected to start in New York by January 2016.
“Today’s announcement represents a major milestone in the implementation of New York State’s Medical Marijuana Program,” said New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker in a statement. “The five organizations selected for registration today showed, through a rigorous and comprehensive evaluation process, they are best suited to produce and provide quality medical marijuana to eligible New Yorkers in need, and to comply with New York’s strict program requirements.”
Advocates of the marijuana program have called the bill, which only allows for five manufacturers and 20 dispensaries and prohibits smoking, “too restrictive.”
The requirements also include a prohibition against dispensing the drug within 1,000 feet of a school or church, a difficult criteria to meet in most parts of Brooklyn. In addition, the marijuana can only be approved for relief from 10 specific illnesses, including cancer, AIDS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Parkinson’s, and epilepsy.
“I am extremely disappointed in [this] decision that translates into lost local jobs and lost local access to critical health care,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams in a statement. “No borough or county has been more vocal or clear in their support for hosting a medical marijuana facility than Brooklyn, the fourth-largest city in the United States which has a significant population of patients in need of palliative care.”
Though the original Compassionate Care Act was sponsored and fiercely advocated for by Senator Diane Savino, who represents parts of Staten Island and Southern Brooklyn, her own constituents will have to travel for relief.
After a years-long opposition from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York became the 23rd state to legalize marijuana in June 2015.