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Connections

Legal marijuana – where it has been and where it’s headed

A man with short light brown hair, mustache and beard, wearing glasses and a green jacket
John Schlia
/
WXXI News
Gino Fanelli

March 31, 2025 will mark four years since New York legalized recreational cannabis. But the roll-out was anything but smooth.

Lawsuits stalled the granting of retail licenses, farmers who were granted a first crack at the marketplace were left sitting on literal tons of weed, and the state was left scrambling to crack down on a flourishing black market.

But now, many of those growing pains have finally been quelled, and the industry passed the $1 billion mark in sales for the first time in 2024.

Guest host Gino Fanelli leads a discussion about where legal pot has been, and where it's headed.

Our guests:

Gino Fanelli is an investigative reporter who also covers City Hall. He joined the staff in 2019 by way of the Rochester Business Journal, and formerly served as a watchdog reporter for Gannett in Maryland and a stringer for the Associated Press.
Megan Mack is the executive producer of "Connections with Evan Dawson" and live/televised engagement programming.
Julie Williams is an associate producer for "Connections with Evan Dawson." She started at WXXI in 2019 and has been working on Connections since 2022.