The New York Cannabis Control Board released a list of 36 more Adult Use Cannabis Conditional Cultivator Licenses last Thursday, adding to the 52 released in April. State regulators also told Grown In that, unlike many other large states where cannabis is legal, they have no near-term plans to release public medical sales data.
Over 200 cultivation license applications have been submitted, say state regulators. The deadline is June 30, 2022.
The conditional cultivation license recipients must have been operating as registered New York hemp growers in the state for two of the past four years and participate in a social equity mentorship program where they provide training in cannabis cultivation and processing for social and economic equity partners.
A spokesperson for the Office of Cannabis Management told Grown In that the state does not yet have a plan to release license information beyond holding company names.
“We want to make sure we’re going to be as transparent as possible, but we want to work with the counties and the public,” on what’s released, said OCM spokesperson Trivette Knowles.
[Read the newest list of cultivators]
Conditional license holders still have a grab bag of regulatory issues that need to be clarified by the state, say farmers. For instance, the state needs to clarify security requirements for outdoor grow sites as well as what records growers need to maintain.
New York is the largest state to not provide cannabis retail sales data, while others like Massachusetts, Illinois, Missouri, and Colorado have been releasing aggregate sales data – including medical sales data for years. According to Knowles, data collected by the state’s seed-to-sale tracking system, BioTrack, does not reflect actual sales.
“I wish it were so simple,” said Knowles. “You want to make sure the data we get is accurate before we release it.”
