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Jenny Argie (Cannabis Expert)
CEO at Jenny’s | Pioneering Cannabis Wellness & Culinary Innovation | Hudson Valley, NY
Industry stakeholders are alleging New York’s Office of Cannabis Management – the agency charged with overseeing the state’s legal marijuana market – is using enforcement powers to retaliate against those who speak out about its part in the flawed rollout of the new marketplace.
Audio recordings, emails and social media posts, along with more than a dozen interviews with business owners and others, evidence why these operators are scared to talk – they’re afraid to lose or be denied a license, or experience “selective enforcement.”
“It seems we want to enforce on people who speak out,” said Ruben Lindo, an entrepreneur and founder of multistate cannabis brand Blak Mar Farms.
And OCM leadership is “doing nothing about it,” he said.
Though the worries have been an open secret within the Empire State’s cannabis industry for more than a year, the circumstances around the OCM’s first recall of a cannabis product, and what happened after, are now bringing these concerns front and center.
And several of the allegations revolve around a top state official who has been openly hostile toward people who disagree with OCM’s methods.
‘Making examples of bad actors’
Jenny Argie was thrilled to enter New York’s cannabis market in 2022 as one of the state’s first licensed processors, who convert the plant into edibles, vapes and topical ointments, among other products.
Like many in the nascent space, Argie – a cancer survivor – scrimped and saved to start Jenny’s, a company that specifically targets a wellness niche: sugar-free, vegan, kosher and organic gummies. She took out a second home loan to open her Hudson Valley facility and later turned down offers from large corporations hoping to buy into her business, she said..
Yet throughout the following year, Argie noticed the proliferation of illicit products entering the market with impunity.
She began speaking out, first in print and ultimately at a New York State Senate Subcommittee on Cannabis hearing in October of 2023, where she explained to senators how New York companies were importing illegal products and passing them off as grown in-state.
Legislators asked how she knew this. Argie didn’t answer at the time – but she had the information on good authority.
Those details came from Damian Fagon, OCM’s chief equity officer responsible for overseeing the social and economic equity initiatives laid out in the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act. (NY Cannabis Insider reached out to Fagon for comment on this article but was directed to the agency’s communications department).
Prior to the hearing, Argie had recorded a phone call with Fagon during which he explained that the agency was aware of the illegal practices but was choosing not to “start a full-fledged crackdown” yet because those actions “would further cripple the market.”
The office would be looking to “make examples” of bad actors by the first quarter of 2024, Fagon said on the call, which was reviewed by NY Cannabis Insider.
Fagon also discussed other infractions going uncorrected in New York’s market, such as deep-pocketed brands offering cushy deals to retailers in order to box out smaller brands.
Argie sent the audio to fellow processors, who were confused about why large brands were being allowed to engage in shady business practices at the expense of small actors.
When enforcement didn’t come, Argie sent the recording to NY Cannabis Insider, but requested not to be named as the source. Fagon’s comments were published in a November article about a top cannabis regulator describing the agency’s hands-off stance toward rule breakers.
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