NY Legalized Pot Expected to be Disappointing, Poor Quality

If you're excited for legalized marijuana in New York, don't hold your breath. Or, actually, you may want to hold your breath to avoid inhaling some sad weed.

New York's first recreational dispensaries are set to open before the end of the year, but the product they're prepared to sell is expected to be underwhelming at best. According to Gothamist, this year's New York pot harvest has been very disappointing for a few reasons.

Earlier this year the state handed out the first growing licenses to farms that were already cultivating hemp. The thought was that they could easily transition to growing marijuana. Operators were limited to growing up to one acre of pot outdoors or inside a 25,000-square-foot greenhouse. Since an acre is almost twice the area of the allowable greenhouse space, many farmers, like those in Long Island and the Hudson Valley, opted to continue growing outside.

Unfortunately, outdoor marijuana plants can't compete with those huge, indoor operations. Bags of huge buds that many black market buyers are used to come from carefully controlled indoor grow operations. New York growers were also faced with drought conditions, which anyone who has gone apple picking this year knows, has led to disappointing crops.

While some Hudson Valley growers have been able to cultivate some impressive outdoor plants this season, much of the pot grown in New York may not be smokable at all. Farmers say that they have harvested mostly "biomass" which is the plant without an attractive flower. If it even passes testing guidelines, the product could be salvaged for pre-rolled joints, but won't likely satisfy picky customers looking for potent flowers.

Because federal law prohibits the transportation of marijuana over state lines, New York will be stuck with whatever it can grow in the state. It's unclear if there will even be enough to satisfy the huge demand, but dispensary owners and farmers hope that the excitement over buying legal weed in New York will distract customers from the quality of what they're actually receiving.

The good news is that farms are already ramping up indoor productions for the spring harvest. Until then, some smokers say they're prepared to continue to rely on the black market or travel to other states until New York catches up.