{"id":10887,"date":"2025-10-27T15:34:45","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T15:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabisindustryjournal.com\/?post_type=news_article&amp;p=37787"},"modified":"2025-10-27T15:34:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T15:34:45","slug":"the-state-of-new-yorks-cannabis-industry-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/the-state-of-new-yorks-cannabis-industry-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"The State Of New York\u2019s Cannabis Industry\u00a02025"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/the-state-of-new-yorks-cannabis-industry-2025\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div><img src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/the-state-of-new-yorks-cannabis-industry-2025.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p data-start=\"307\" data-end=\"770\">Jason Ambrosino, a disabled Army veteran and founder of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.veteranschoicecreations.com\/\">Veterans Holdings<\/a>, entered the New York market in 2019 under the state\u2019s hemp program with the goal of cultivating and manufacturing cannabis. But despite holding a 5,000-square-foot indoor cultivation license, he decided not to build out his facility. The reason, he says, is simple: \u201cThe registered organizations (ROs) in New York State own the flower industry. They own it. You\u2019re not going to break in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"772\" data-end=\"1481\">Ambrosino explained that the state\u2019s vertically integrated ROs, many of which started as medical operators, dominate the adult-use flower market with massive 100,000-square-foot indoor canopies and the ability to negotiate favorable energy rates. \u201cThe number one driver of indoor flower price anywhere is electricity cost,\u201d he said. \u201cWhere I am in New York State, it\u2019s 23 cents a kilowatt hour. The ROs can negotiate directly for 7, 8, or 9 cents per kilowatt-hour because of their size. There will never be a day when I can operate in the market alongside them, because it costs me twice as much to grow as it does them.\u201d He said that disparity makes small-scale cultivation unviable for most new entrants.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1483\" data-end=\"1770\">Ambrosino estimates that it could cost him roughly $600 per pound to grow cannabis, while the ROs can do it for about half that. \u201cYou don\u2019t really think about it until you end up paying for a license, only to find out the utility prices are so high that you can\u2019t make it work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1772\" data-end=\"2152\">He believes the state\u2019s adult-use rollout created an illusion of opportunity for small hemp farmers and microbusinesses. \u201cThey used the illusion of inclusion to gain public support,\u201d he said. \u201cThey built protections that were meant to keep ROs out for three years to create a level playing field, but these protections were stripped away after enough lobbying dollars were spent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2154\" data-end=\"2479\">According to Ambrosino, large operators pressured lawmakers by withholding financial commitments to social equity programs until they received favorable terms. \u201cThey held them hostage,\u201d he said. \u201cThey told lawmakers, \u2018We\u2019re not going to pay you any of that money until you give us a more favorable law.\u2019 So, they changed it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2481\" data-end=\"2862\">The result, he says, is a market where ROs hold most of the canopy, while smaller cultivators face high costs, limited access, and few realistic paths to profitability. \u201cRight now, microbusinesses are structured for failure,\u201d Ambrosino said. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to sell flower at $60 when dispensaries can get indoor-grown product from ROs for $30 or $35. You can\u2019t compete with that.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4 data-start=\"2869\" data-end=\"2939\"><strong>Mismatched Policy, Manipulated Data, and a Market Set to Run Dry<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p data-start=\"2941\" data-end=\"3553\">Ambrosino says the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) has failed to recognize the growing imbalance between large registered organizations and small cultivators. \u201cThe data OCM puts out is very manipulated and questionable,\u201d he said. \u201cThey conflict with what they report from one day to the next. One day, there\u2019s not enough canopy, the next day, there\u2019s too much. It\u2019s all over the place. They\u2019ll show you all the potential canopy of adult-use license holders, but the reality is 80% of them aren\u2019t growing, or they\u2019re only using part of their allotted space. Meanwhile, the ROs are operating at a massive scale.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"3555\" data-end=\"3874\">He believes this disconnect has led policymakers to think there\u2019s an oversupply problem when in reality there\u2019s a shortage of affordable biomass. \u201cOCM looks at flower canopy, not biomass canopy,\u201d Ambrosino said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have enough biomass to produce distillate, and distillate is what sets the price for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"3876\" data-end=\"4240\">Ambrosino, who sits on the board of the Association of New York Cannabis Processors, says the solution starts with expanding outdoor cultivation. \u201cWe\u2019ve been lobbying the state to raise the outdoor cap from one acre to five,\u201d he explained. \u201cThey keep saying there\u2019s enough canopy, but that\u2019s not true if you want a functioning processing and manufacturing sector.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"4242\" data-end=\"4592\">He also believes OCM steered small farmers in the wrong direction. \u201cThey convinced these guys to grow indoors when they had no capital to begin with,\u201d he said. \u201cOutdoor grows are cheaper, more sustainable, and can produce terpene-rich material that\u2019s perfect for extraction. Giving up those outdoor licenses was the worst thing they could have done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"4594\" data-end=\"5000\">Ambrosino sees the industry\u2019s structural problems fueling a deeper issue: product inversion. \u201cInversion is like a cancer tumor,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone \u2014 dispensaries, processors, cultivators \u2014 is supporting it. If OCM just cuts it out overnight, the market will bleed to death. We have to shrink the tumor first. The only way to do that is to expand cultivation enough that it doesn\u2019t make sense to invert.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4 data-start=\"5007\" data-end=\"5051\"><strong>Licensing Gridlock and Market Whiplash<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p data-start=\"5053\" data-end=\"5605\">Dispensary operators say New York\u2019s market isn\u2019t just constrained by bureaucracy, it\u2019s tangled in its own rules. Jon Paul Pezzo, owner of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nycbud.com\/\">NYC Bud<\/a> dispensary, believes the state\u2019s proximity restrictions have unintentionally frozen the licensing process. \u201cYou have a lot of people that are holding proximities because they\u2019re in the December queue or they just have a proximity,\u201d he explained. \u201cSome may have abandoned their license or run out of money, but those spots are still locked up. That means someone with an actual license can\u2019t move forward.\u201d Pezzo said that while rolling out the market slowly may have helped at first, the process has caused problems on all sides.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"5734\" data-end=\"6100\">Now that the agency is considering waiving its 1,000-foot proximity rule to allow more dispensaries to open, Pezzo worries it\u2019s too soon for such sweeping changes. \u201cThe industry isn\u2019t even five years old,\u201d he said. \u201cLet it play out before you start rewriting the rules. If we had known these laws would change this quickly, maybe we would have invested differently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"6102\" data-end=\"6408\">He added that while OCM claims to solicit feedback from operators, the process feels one-sided. \u201cI\u2019ve been to many OCM meetings where everyone\u2019s frustrated, and the regulators just sit there getting yelled at,\u201d he said. \u201cAt some point, they just shut down. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re really listening to logic.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4 data-start=\"6415\" data-end=\"6474\"><strong>The Data Gap: METRC, Testing, and a Lack of Standards<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p data-start=\"6476\" data-end=\"7006\">Ambrosino believes New York\u2019s lack of standardized testing and tracking has left the industry vulnerable to chaos. \u201cIf you want a juicy nugget, I\u2019ll tell you where to look,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s in the testing, and it\u2019s in the labs. If you dig deep enough, you\u2019ll find that all of our labs are invalid because they were supposed to be updated by Wadsworth Labs, the state police lab that never got the equipment. Because of that, every lab is operating under its own standard. There\u2019s no standardization between labs, and nobody knows.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"7008\" data-end=\"7338\">That lack of consistency, he warns, could have far-reaching financial consequences. When potency-based taxes were imposed, each lab\u2019s different results meant the state effectively collected taxes on unverified data. \u201cDon\u2019t be surprised if people start demanding money back for what they overpaid in potency taxes,\u201d Ambrosino said.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"7340\" data-end=\"7557\">A long-promised track-and-trace system could have helped prevent some of this disarray, but the rollout has been repeatedly delayed. After three years, the agency now says METRC will finally be implemented in January.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"7559\" data-end=\"7990\">Jon Paul Pezzo says the delay has left retailers struggling with manual systems that are prone to human error. \u201cIn a perfect world, this should work like a supermarket\u2014product comes in, product goes out, and it\u2019s all scanned into one universal system,\u201d he explained. \u201cInstead, we\u2019re manually entering everything, and that leads to mislabeled products and bad data. For something that\u2019s a controlled substance, that\u2019s unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"7992\" data-end=\"8333\">He believes a fully integrated METRC system could finally bring order to the process. \u201cYou\u2019d have cultivators logging shipments, dispensaries scanning them in, and all the details automatically syncing,\u201d Pezzo said. \u201cIt would make everyone\u2019s life easier and protect the business as a whole. I just don\u2019t understand why it\u2019s taken this long.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4 data-start=\"8340\" data-end=\"8402\"><strong>The Hemp Loophole is Undermining New York\u2019s Legal Market<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p data-start=\"8404\" data-end=\"8781\">\u201cThe entire industry is using the hemp loophole,\u201d Ambrosino said, describing a troubling double standard: OCM forced him to remove hemp-derived products from his website even though the regulations permitted out-of-state sales for products under the .3% threshold, while companies like Sluggers continue to sell high-potency \u201cTHCA hemp\u201d products directly to New Yorkers online.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"8783\" data-end=\"8972\">\u201cThis stuff they\u2019re calling hemp, it\u2019s not hemp, it\u2019s marijuana,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to be smarter. It\u2019s deceptive, and it\u2019s hurting the legal operators who are trying to play by the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"8974\" data-end=\"9163\">Ambrosino says that without proper lab oversight and product tracking, hemp-derived cannabinoids like THCA are slipping through regulatory cracks, further undermining the licensed market.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\">\n<div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\">\n<h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jason Ambrosino, a disabled Army veteran and founder of Veterans Holdings, entered the New York market in 2019 under the state\u2019s hemp program with the goal of cultivating and manufacturing cannabis. But despite holding a 5,000-square-foot indoor cultivation license, he decided not to build out his facility. The reason, he says, is simple: \u201cThe registered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5179,609,9290,1964,5334,2254,8514,6430,8469,9,50,10819,6845,8477,1,3,9136,61,1736],"tags":[5181,3182,9295,4532,5350,4821,8540,6433,8491,2630,10820,6846,8499,9150],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10887"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}