The Roosevelt House public policy program invited former City Council Member Robert E. Cornegy Jr. to have a conversation with Program Director Dr. Basil A. Smikle Jr. this spring about social and economic equity within New York state’s cannabis industry.
The conversation, which occurred on March 19, is featured on the Roosevelt Public Policy Institute’s podcast “Public Policy Mixtape,” a program that creates a space for “scholarly and public audiences to participate in high-profile lectures, seminars and conferences.”
Previously, Smikle has featured discussions on abolitionist education policy, post-Covid sustainability, and housing policy. One last minute visitor to the March discussion was former U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney, who has collaborated on policy in the past with Cornegy.
Growing up as a preacher’s son, Cornegy said he decided that he wanted to take the route to serve publicly in his community in a similar way to give back. While traveling throughout the world during his former career as a professional basketball player in Israel and Turkey, he brought much of the international policy he witnessed first hand as an inspiration back home, he said.
A native of Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Cornegy represented the 36th district (Bed-Stuy and Northern Crown Heights) for two, four-year terms, serving both as the chair of the Democratic Conference and co-chair of the Black, Latino, and Asian caucus. He is currently the founder of 610 Collective, a minority business enterprise, which in terms of cannabis, focuses on integrating local New York businesses into a vertical supply chain “through assistance in the social equity application process,” including assistance in maintaining compliance to New York state’s strict and new regulations on cannabis sales.
Cornegy mentioned that he was inspired by the Doe Fund, which for over 30-years has worked towards reinstituting the formerly incarcerated and fights against homelessness by providing economic opportunity, housing, and career training. So far, the Doe Fund has served over 30,000 men.
With only 30 legal cannabis dispensaries open in New York state since the legalization in March 2021, Cornegy emphasized his belief that “legacy” sellers, or those who have been formerly incarcerated or previously involved in the sale and growth of cannabis, should be given priority to a license to sell.
While a license in New York state is only around $1,000 depending on individual situations, he says that “the cannabis market is very resource intensive.”
This includes the barriers of site control of where dispensaries are legally allowed to be located and limit to regulations of the farms and growers themselves, with “only two to three of those being Black.”
Cornegy said the reason why illegal cannabis stores are popping up everyday is because the police are avoiding arresting those with prior cannabis charges and because the billion dollar market provides so much profit, shops do not lose much when they are initially shut down.
Cornegy feels that if more business people were put at the table with policy makers, there would actually be an opportunity for positive change that could change communities overnight.
When having these conversations with those who live and represent New York’s diverse communities, Cornegy hopes for a brighter and more just future of cannabis both state and city wide, that actually mirrors the diversity of those who are directly affected by the industry.
The conversation between Cornegy and Smikle is available through The Roosevelt Public Policy Institutes podcast Public Policy Mixtape on Spotify and Apple Music.
