More than two years after pledging support for cannabis legalization, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a legalization bill Wednesday morning that will pave the way for an adult-use market to be launched sometime in early 2022. The states medical program saw slow growth from its start, just reaching $111 million in sales in 2020, but the legalization of adult-use will reposition New York to be one of the biggest cannabis markets in the country by 2026.

Gov. Cuomo has signaled his openness to adult-use cannabis since early 2019, but disputes over licensure, tax rates and the allocation of cannabis revenue have blocked the progress of adult-use legalization until just last week. While previous efforts focused on using the state budget as a method to legalize, the Governor’s office and legislature agreed on a separate bill, which passed through the legislature on March 30, 2021 and was signed into law the next morning. BDSA predicts that sales will start in Q1 2022.

BDSA’s Chief Executive Officer, Micah Tapman and Vice President of Insights and Analytics, Kelly Nielsen recently joined Canaccord Genuity’s Bobby Burleson for a lively discussion surrounding BDSA’s latest market forecast. Here are the highlights!

With the results of the 2020 election finalized, one of the clear winners was the cannabis industry, with every legalization proposal on the ballot passing. Voters in 2020 showed that cannabis legalization has grown in popularity to the point that it is no longer a partisan issue, but the progress seen in legalization at the state level has been accompanied largely by inaction at the federal level. The election of Joe Biden to the presidency and the recent progress of cannabis legislation in the House of Representatives give hope that the gridlock on nationwide cannabis reform may be coming to an end in 2021.

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