Newsletter: 4/20 in NYC highlights gap in cannabis event permitting • NHTSA sends report to Congress on cannabis and impaired driving • & more …

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Team Cannabis Wire took a long walk on Saturday to see how 4/20 was unfolding across different New York City neighborhoods. The goal was to feel the vibe of the city and see what licensed shops and unlicensed shops and vendors were doing. 

The first observation: most unlicensed shops were empty or had only a customer or two inside, even though they were promoting 4/20 specials. 

A bonus observation: these two NYPD officers walked right past this open unlicensed shop (which, it’s worth noting, had a sign out front that illegal cannabis had been seized at the location) and they went into the Dunkin’ Donuts next door. 

We noticed that licensed shops were busier than unlicensed ones and had found creative ways to promote their offerings. There was a consistently long line at Housing Works Cannabis Co. throughout the day, for example. Verdi in Chelsea had its store open to the street and musicians playing a free concert for passersby. We saw a lot of pedestrians stopping to listen and take pictures. 

Finally, we went to Washington Square Park, which was as crowded as we’ve seen it on a 4/20 (the nice weather and the fact that it as a Saturday might have been a factor.)The park walkways were packed with tents (some with creative marketing) belonging to unlicensed sellers, growers, and delivery services. 

It was tough to find any open spots on the lawns, where crowds of people gathered on blankets and smoked pre-rolls. 

Even the periphery of the park was populated with trucks and other unlicensed vendors selling popular brands, like Cookies. (They may very well have been knockoff products, if not illegally diverted.)

The biggest takeaway? There was no event or vendor permitting happening here, and city and state officials and regulators are going to have to find a way to meet the clear demand for this kind of event by incorporating the licensed operators. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a report on Friday that detailed existing, ongoing, and needed research on cannabis, as well as barriers to that research. The report, titled Report on Marijuana Research: Report to Congress, is months late, and was mandated by the infrastructure bill that Pres. Joe Biden signed in 2022. Here’s what Congress asked for: describe “methods for increasing and improving scientific researcher access to marijuana, establishing a national clearinghouse to distribute marijuana for research purposes, and for facilitating researcher access to marijuana,” as well as “statutory and regulatory barriers to conducting scientific research on cannabis and driving.” What the report delivered: NHTSA highlighted that it sponsors Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) projects on the topics of oral fluid and breath analysis related to very recent cannabis consumption. “If the SBIR projects succeed, they will offer non-invasive methods to quantify a driver’s THC at the roadside. These promising tools may result in commercial products that can be used in a traffic law enforcement setting,” the report noted. “This could aid in adjudication of impaired driving cases where cannabis use is suspected by documenting time-sensitive information about the amount of THC present in the suspected impaired driver.” The report also emphasized the need for “apples to apples” comparisons in studies, and how “standardization of delivery (dosing) methodology is very important to understanding research findings related to traffic safety.” It wasn’t until 2021 that the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as Cannabis Wire reported at the time, established 5 mg THC as the standard dose for researchers.What about potential barriers to research posed by how cannabis is scheduled? The report noted that the procedural hoops that researchers have to jump through “are not necessarily barriers to conducting research.”However, the report noted the impact that rescheduling could have on this sometimes lengthy process (in fact, the scheduling review comes up often in this report). “Some regulatory relief from these steps could be achieved if cannabis were removed from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act,” the report said. Two potential barriers that do exist, however, are around access to funding and the “perceived institutional risk” related to the potential loss of funding, as well as “legislative uncertainty.” What’s next? The report makes clear that the situation around cannabis research is fluid. “There is substantial ongoing research on cannabis and on how impairment might be detected or understood. Because the science in this area is not settled, new findings may be released at any time,” the report notes. This, and other factors, “complicate the longevity of the findings of this report.”