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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" and is also the office administrator for radio, news and technology and operations. She started at WXXI in 2019 and has been working on Connections since 2022.