Cannabis regulators in New York this week issued a license to open a marijuana dispensary to a company founded by formerly incarcerated individuals, a move that furthers the state’s goal to ensure communities impacted by decades of cannabis prohibition have a place in the emerging legal market for recreational marijuana.
The New York Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) awarded one of 99 conditional adult-use retail dispensary (CAURD) licenses to Coss Marte, Alfredo Angueira and Junior Martinez, the co-founders of Conbud. Billed as the world’s first licensed cannabis dispensary run and operated by formerly incarcerated individuals, Conbud is planning the grand opening of its Manhattan storefront for early fall 2023, with delivery service to all five boroughs of New York City slated to begin this summer.
Conbud plans to open its cannabis dispensary owned and operated by formerly incarcerated individuals ... [+]
New York legalized adult-use cannabis in 2021, and the first recreational marijuana dispensary opened its doors in Manhattan late last year. In August 2022, the OCM announced that the first CAURD licenses would be issued to companies headed by individuals with past convictions for marijuana-related crimes and to organizations that provide services to justice-involved individuals.
Successful applicants receive aid from a $200 million Social Equity Cannabis Investment Fund, which was created to help finance the leasing and outfitting of up to 150 recreational marijuana dispensaries across the state. The agency awarded the first CAURD licenses in November, and last month, the OCM announced that the number of CAURD licenses would be doubled, bringing the total to 300.
Six Years In Prison For Selling Weed
Conbud’s Marte, who spent six years in prison for selling marijuana, meets the requirements set by the OCM for New York’s adult-use cannabis retailers. He was introduced to marijuana at an early age, and before long, he saw selling drugs as one of the few viable economic opportunities available to him. Well before recreational marijuana was legalized in the Empire State, Marte got an early start supplying cannabis and other drugs to New Yorkers through the city’s underground industry. But after a brief period of meteoric success, the operation came crashing down when he was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison.
“At 13, I started dealing and from there, it just started escalating,” he explained in an interview for High Times last year. “At 19, I was running one of the largest drug delivery services in New York City. I was generating about five million dollars in revenue, doing a delivery service. And I got knocked and everything ended at 23 years old.”
After being warned by prison doctors that his cholesterol levels were dangerously high, Marte spent his time behind bars getting in shape, eventually becoming a fitness mentor to fellow inmates. He started a workout program on the prison yard, helping more than 20 fellow inmates lose a combined total of more than 1,000 pounds.
New Opportunities For Former Inmates
Once he was released, he started Conbody, a fitness method managed and run by former inmates with a mission to de-stigmatize the formerly incarcerated community and ease their integration back into society, especially Black and Brown returning citizens. Ever the entrepreneur, Marte saw New York’s commitment to equity and diversity in the cannabis industry as an opportunity to return to the lucrative business that put him behind bars.
Conbud founders Junior Martinez, Coss Marte and Alfredo Angueira.
“Every generation stands on the shoulders of those who did the time so that we can be more free,” Marte said in a statement from Conbud. “For the hundreds of thousands of Black and Brown New Yorkers like me who spent years doing time for cannabis offenses, this opportunity is our 40 acres and a mule.”
Angueira, Conbud’s chief compliance officer, is an attorney, community advocate and entrepreneur in New York’s restaurant and hospitality industry. He also spent two years teaching legal research skills to Rikers Island detainees, most of whom were pretrial defendants in custody for drug charges. And with Conbud, he and his partners plan to support formerly incarcerated individuals with job opportunities in the Big Apple’s nascent regulated adult-use cannabis industry.
“During the War on Drugs, 85% of New York State’s prison population was Black and Latino, and 75% came from just seven neighborhoods in New York City,” said Angueira. “Conbud was born by three Black and Latino individuals who were raised in three of these neighborhoods. Not only have we experienced New York’s criminal justice system firsthand, but we are committed to leveraging New York’s recreational cannabis industry to bring much-needed employment stability to those who have been affected by it.”
