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NY favors drug felons over disabled veterans to sell marijuana, suit claims

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Kamaji:
NY favors drug felons over disabled veterans to sell marijuana, suit claims

By Carl Campanile
August 3, 2023

Four New Yorkers who served in the U.S. Armed Forces have sued Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration, accusing state officials of favoring convicted drug felons over disabled vets in the awarding of licenses to sell legal marijuana.

The lawsuit alleges regulators with the Office of Cannabis Management and state Cannabis Control Board failed to set up a legal cannabis market envisioned by New York’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA) approved in 2021, which specifically lists disabled vets as one of five priority “social and economic equity” groups to get at least 50% of employment opportunities in the budding pot industry.

The five groups mentioned are convicted felons of marijuana-related crimes, service-disabled veterans, as well as women and minority-owned businesses and “distressed farmers.”

But regulators excluded disabled vets from the first round of awards to sell weed after creating the program for Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary licenses, the suit said.

The first licenses instead went to “justice involved” individuals or partners of drug felons as well as applicants from other categories, the suit, filed in state Supreme Court in Albany alleges.

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Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/08/03/ny-favors-drug-felons-over-disabled-vets-to-sell-marijuana-suit/

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