Niagara County, N.Y. (WBEN) - New York State's Office of Cannabis Management has been slowly wheeling out rules and regulations as well as conditional licenses to grow, process and eventually distribute recreational marijuana to the public.
Hemp growers have first dibs on cultivation as New York State gave 203 hemp growers a shot at cultivating marijuana, which they can lightly process and sell to licensed dispensaries and distributors. Indoor growers are expected to join later.
Tom Szulist, Owner of Singer Farm Naturals has been growing hemp for three years, which provides CBD that he can sell in his shop to customers and this year has obtained a conditional cultivation license to grow, which gives him the ability to lightly process the plant and sell to distributors. Hemp and marijuana are the same species of plant, but marijuana has THC, which is what causes the high effects.
"Cannabis is cannabis. Hemp happens to have the genetic difference that it exhibits characteristics that are non-psychoactive and, as we call marijuana, it just happens to be the same cannabis plant that has THC expressed in its flowers. It's all the same. I started growing it about three years ago, I had three complete seasons growing CBD and then this year will be the first year that I received a conditional license which will allow me to grow the genetic varieties and have THC present in their flowers," said Szulist.
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There are many variables in the growing process when it comes to growing cannabis, as well as various types, which grow at various rates.
"There are a couple of different varieties of cannabis. Most of them as we know, are time sensitive. When August 13th happens, that's when we get less than 12 hours of daylight and then the plant starts to sense the season is over and it starts to form its flowers, which could last anywhere between seven weeks to as many as 11 weeks and maturity. There are also some additional genetic variations called the rebellious gene which allows the plant to mature in 71 days from the date the plant is started," said Szulist.
"Auto flowers and fast flowers they are called. We have a combination of plants that we are doing. Regular photo series, which we plant on six foot centers and then in between we can plant an auto flower that will mature. We will pull it out and then the regular flop plant will mature to its full extent."
Under the conditional cultivation license in New York, Szulist is allowed to grow up to an acre of outdoor cannabis on the land or 25,000 square feet under glass if you were to grow in an open greenhouse. The license is good for two years.
Cultivators can process the plant and sell it direct to dispensaries, anything other than the plant itself, needs to be extracted and tested via processors, who have the ability to process and extract the plant via a conditional processing license. This license must be acquired if you were to create edibles, wax, vapes and more out of the plant.
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"For any heavier processing we would go to one of our partners, one of the processors either in Batavia or Rochester that will do extraction for us in the case of making gummies (edibles) and actually producing the gummy," said Szulist. "We can build a brand, which we plan on doing."
Dispensaries are still on track to be open by the end of the year, "Dispensary licenses, there's a special program where New York is going to be issuing 200 of them and I believe that that is very close to being open, it's probably within the next 15 to 30 days. Once that application process is open, they expect to get 200 dispensaries open by the end of the year," said Szulist.
Medical dispensaries may be able to sell recreationally first. However, not all the rules and regulations for dispensary operations have been fully written and obtained. Szulist says that he eventually would like to sell his product direct.
"Not everything is written, not all of the thoughts have been processed as to how to do this. Personally, I think it makes sense, just like the craft beer industry, that if I was a brewer and I made my beer and I was proud of it, I would be able to distribute it and sell directly to my customers. I'll make that case because I would like to sell the cannabis that I grow. I can sell my non-THC grow to the public. I would like to sell the stuff with THC to the public and I'll be a strong lobbyist for that. In the meantime, whatever the rules are, we'll work with them and we're happy to be part of this burgeoning industry that's about to start," Szulist said.
For the full interview, see the player below: