Selling Marijuana on Tribal Lands, a Legal Gray Area in New York

With New York state officials slow to establish regulations, members of the St. Regis Mohawks have raced ahead, opening a number of dispensaries for recreational marijuana.

It doesn’t take long after entering the St. Regis Mohawk reservation to see a glimpse of the future of marijuana sales in the state of New York.

The reservation — a sovereign tribal land in the eyes of the government — currently holds the distinction of hosting New York’s only overt outlets for recreational sales of the drug: nearly a dozen dispensaries offering an array of joints, gummies, edibles and tinctures, which imbue this far-flung, northern-border territory with a shaggy, entrepreneurial energy.

In front of one dispensary, Best Budz, a smiling, neon-green wavy-tube monster welcomes customers to a salesroom housed in a shipping container; another, Six Bears, offers 24-hour-a-day sales, complete with a drive-through window and a work-in-progress “V.I.P. lounge.”

All of which is legal, according to the state, if exceedingly remote: The nearest big city is Montreal, about 70 miles to the northeast, and even visitors from upstate cities like Syracuse face a drive of three hours or more.

But while New York City customers might prefer closer locales in Massachusetts (where recreational marijuana sales began in 2018), the proprietors of the reservation’s new weed dispensaries say they are doing a steady business, capitalizing on delays from state leaders who have been slow to adopt regulations to govern the adult-use sale of the drug. Possession and use of marijuana in limited amounts for recreational use became legal in New York in late March. [Read More @ The NY Times]