Jason Klimek, Cannabis Team co-leader, was interviewed for the WXXI News article “New York Cannabis Board Says Businesses Giving Away Marijuana Are Breaking the Law” regarding Cannabis Control Board Chair Tremaine Wright declaring the practice of gifting cannabis with the purchase of a product illegal.
The Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, which was signed into law on March 31, 2021, “specifies that legal, license, taxed sales [of cannabis] can begin only after the state approves regulations governing those sales and the businesses making them.”
About Wright declaring gifting cannabis illegal thus ending the uncertainty around the practice, Jason said, “It was fairly predictable that this would be the outcome. Paramount is consumer safety, and the chair emphasized that. It was very good for them to say that, because there has been a huge question about this, we get calls almost daily.”
The sale of unregulated cannabis products can be dangerous. It is likely that fines will start to be imposed upon people and establishments selling and gifting illegal cannabis products now that it’s been made abundantly clear that the practice isn’t legal.
Jason said, “Perhaps law enforcement is more likely to engage at this point, and if they were to do to that, they would probably go after a sort of bigger operator to set an example.”
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