My initiation into the cannabis trade began in a middle school bathroom.
Some people have a trust fund I had a weed fund.
It afforded me the ability to create art at my own leisure.
John Elfand, one of New York’s legendary smugglers and growers, and a co-founder of Empire CannabisJay Bulger
Like my grandmother Mary Kelly Bulger used to say, You cant beat the government.
But when the 2023 writers strike happened, I found myself plunging headlong back into the fray.
Forget about celebrity brands all that matters is the grower.
Forget about THC percentages do you judge liquor quality by its alcohol content?
According to Jodrey, there is no such thing as pure indica or sativa.
Ive found that its the most energetic weed.
Not for everyone, but it beats taking Adderall.
Any other haze hybrids put me to sleep.
In the early 2000s, growers realized its much easier to produce a sativa-leaning hybrid in 60 days.
Customers wont know the difference.
He says indicas dominate their West Coast sales.
But New Yorkers dont know chill.
More than anywhere else on Earth, we cant stop moving.
I see an opening to unleash a cannabis brand solely dedicated to genuine, equatorial, narrow-leaf cultivars.
I christen it High Functions.
But to succeed, I need to find some partners.
So come along on a guided tour of the opportunity and fuckery that abound in New Amsterdam.
This is no smoke shop.
Joanne Wilson, the owner of Gotham, waits for me in the center of the dispensary.
Shes also a powerful pothead whos been smoking weed daily since she was 15.
I carved thousands of miles through the citys streets, serving up that Sour Diesel.
I live for world domination.
I cant deny it, she says sarcastically.
I was inspired to revolutionize the way we think about buying cannabis.
Za, shops that have proliferated all over the city.
For better or worse, Gotham is the only Gotham in Gotham.
Out of respect for those whod done time, I didnt pursue it.
Licenses were also granted to a select group of nonprofit applicants who managed to navigate the system.
Wilson took the nonprofit route, partnering with Strive, a nationwide job-training organization.
They will be rewarded financially as we begin to see a profit, she says.
Im not driven by greed.
Were able to provide our employees with benefits, share the wealth, make a difference in the community.
Wilson doesnt talk shit.
She seems like shes doing this for fun, because she loves weed.
Everything else was Mexican brick weed, and we had the good shit.
He says they made millions.
Ralph screams as John tells the story.)
For a time, they were cellmates.
While incarcerated, John says, he took over cannabis operations at Otisville prison in upstate New York.
(The prison did not return a request for comment.)
The Elfands flagrantly did interviews on local news, challenging New York state as they operated without licenses.
Its a fictitious legalization.
Yet as I head out to meet with John, Empire is still the most popular chain in town.
Empire sells indoor California weed, while Gotham serves greenhouse cannabis from first-time operations.
If they were dueling wine shops, Empire sells Champagne and Gotham sells sparkling wine from New York.
John Elfand, six-foot-one with a slicked-back gray ponytail and glasses, is an urban hippie gangster.
After the dealers exit, John hobbles toward me, extending his hand.
(The limp is the result of a mountain-climbing accident.)
He looks me up and down, deciding if he can trust me.
If they want to shut me down, Ill sue them into oblivion.
Its not my fault they created this loophole.
John interjects, We dont sell anything.
This is a club!
Once individuals have secured their membership, the realm of curated cannabis products opens before them.
An unapologetic purveyor of out-of-state cannabis, Elfand thumbs his nose at the regulations.
He claims Empire grosses $75,000 a day across its locations.
Ive spent a cumulative 15 years behind bars, off and on.
Ive been to federal prison twice.
Im not walking away now, just to let some corporate entity like Curaleaf take the whole damn pie.
Id rather head back to the joint.
While Elfand declares his products safe, there is no oversight to confirm this.
Anyway, he claims licensed stores are just as unreliable: The licensed growers are so full of shit.
The state has them self-policing.
Illicit marketplaces confuse consumers.
Still, Elfand maintains an unshakable air of legal invincibility.
If they want to shut me down, Ill sue them into oblivion, he says.
Its not my fault they created this loophole.
Otherwise, they wouldnt have insured my business.
The afternoon we meet at Empire, Elfand agrees to carry my product on consignment.
he tells me, before hanging up.
I race over to an Empire location in Chelsea to witness the standoff.
The state officials do not have a search warrant.
John denies their entry.
The standoff lasts seven hours.
Eventually, the tax authorities force their way in, seizing products.
In the wake of the raids, I ask John, Is this the beginning of the end?
Without hesitation, he reassures me, Its all bullshit, a PR move to show theyre doing something.
Were already back open!
Wright tells me Empire is on borrowed time.
The Urban Farmer
In return, an eight-percent slice of the pie awaits me.
I would make approximately $1 per eighth sold.
Not a windfall by any stretch, but a start?
I could stop hiding and promote my brand in public.
He looks like hired muscle.
Im Sid, he declares, extending his hand.
Nobody will spend that much time and money to grow real haze.
Our discourse turns to our respective cannabis origins.
Setting up camp in Oregon, he unfurled the banner of Pistil Point cannabis in 2013.
At present, Flowerhouse stands as one of the largest legal cultivators in New York state.
Guzman is right: This weed is bad.
Its making me paranoid.
Overhead, intricate networks of fishing lines support the burgeoning weight of the plants.
The industrial fans, roaring like jet engines, have us screaming at each other.
Gupta extends his arm to a row of familiar-looking plants.
Even in todays competitive market, it brings in around a half billion annually.
Sour is the great unifier of NYC cannabis history, he says.
Now, Flowerhouse will be the producer of the original Sour, and that means something to New Yorkers.
But Guptas plan is riddled with obstacles.
For starters, the federal ban on cannabis means genetic strains cannot be easily patented.
I give a shot to steer the conversation toward my idea: growing 90-day haze.
Do you know anything about weed, man?!
He says it could take way more than 90 days to grow haze under these conditions.
Instead, he offers a more practical and cost-effective compromise a sativa hybrid.
As we part ways, I know that I will not be doing business with Flowerhouse.
Flowerhouse and growers across the state have harvested their cannabis, hoping to sell it to 477 stores.
Cannabis is perishable and susceptible to decomposition within a few months.
The ruling threatens to bankrupt the cultivators.
Amid this uncertain climate, I seek the wisdom of AJ Sour Diesel himself.
AJ is 50, a lanky, Irish American silver fox with glasses and a coyote smile.
He grew up between Manhattan and Westchester, attending reform school, where he sold weed.
Shakedown Street, where traveling dealers would exchange seeds.
In the late Nineties, a pound of Sour Diesel could fetch upward of $15,000.
Hes disappointed with the rollout of legal weed yet stalwart about the future.
In the short term, this is rough, he says of the stalled CAURD program.
People have poured millions of dollars into growing weed legally, and they cant get their returns.
But in the long run, I know legal is the way.
I was never greedy.
Im too old to go to prison.
AJ is less optimistic about High Functions: Youre fucked.
Nobody will spend that much time and money to grow real haze.
People think Sour Diesel is sativa its a hybrid.
The market is experiencing so much turmoil at present, there is no room for experimentation.
I need my medicine, so I take the subway out to Rockaway Beach to purchase some Cuban Black.
Im here to survive.
My mom doesnt know what I do.
I guess Im still of the mind its subversive.
I bought a cheap house.
Everyone knew each other.
Most people mind their business except for this lady.
He signals toward the window above a garage across the street.
Karma, you know, it all balances out, Kev tells me.
The bedroom is outfitted with a second, smaller grow.
Three-foot-tall bags filled with dirt give birth to six-foot trees.
A spider web of strings creates grids throughout the room, supporting the stalks.
My mom doesnt know what I do, he says.
I guess its part embarrassment.
Im still of the mind that its subversive.
You were really hungry, eating good!
It makes you think quick.
You know, Did I do my homework?
Is that guy a cop?
Maybe I should drink some water.
We spend the whole day shooting the breeze, swapping stories, and sharing joints.
Kevs got a certain Irish charm, and I cant help but feel a kinship.
As the day unfolds, I sense an opportunity for a potent alliance.
Its a puzzling ordeal.
We make plans, he cancels, and the pattern repeats.
On one occasion, he has just been involved in a physical altercation with a cyclist.
He finds it comical and insists that cannabis prohibition is all but over.
This is probably my 15th bust.
Ive got a doctors note.
I meet with a local Yemeni distributor who supplies 75 smoke shops, but they dont care about provenance.
His brother, Christopher Marte, is the local city councilman.
Conbuds Delancey Street building once served as a bank, its vaults brimming with cash.
The store is adorned with stencils of Mike Tyson, remnants of a recent cannabis collaboration.
I could have done the gray-market thing, but soon enough the government will collect.
The 38-year-old Dominican has sharp facial features and eyes that seem to be plotting moves ahead.
I could have done the gray-market thing, but eventually, theyre going to close all those stores.
The government is going to collect.
On the way home, I smoke a joint of Conbuds Mata.
It was produced outdoors in upstate New York by a grower named Ivan.
The haze is from the South, Ivan tells me later.
It was meant to be grown outdoors.
You want your tomatoes from a laboratory or a farm under the sunlight?
The only reason we grew it indoors in the first place was because we were breaking the law.
Not long after my Conbud visit, Sid Gupta is ousted by his Flowerhouse investors.
I dont want to make him extinct.
I want him to be present and alive in New York.
AJ relocated from Cali two years ago hoping to claim his place in the initial legal rollout.
He bet on Flowerhouse, attending events to mark the release of the packaging that carried his name.
Were better off sitting on the sidelines until New York figures its shit out!
White Boy Kev tells me as we hit the Lincoln Tunnel.
Whereas former New York Gov.
Having already issued licenses to grow indoors, they are much further along in the process.
Were meeting a grower there who is willing to dedicate warehouse space to produce the 90-day haze.
MetLife Stadium looms through winter-bare trees.
We pull into the last parking lot before the highway, where a lone white Mercedes G Wagon sits.
We tour Desais sprawling, 62,000-square-foot warehouse, which will soon produce hundreds of pounds per month.
He describes what plants will be held where.
I have covered every one of those city blocks by bicycle.
Ill be back there when New York gets its act together.
Its not a race.
The Next Chapter
At the end of April, I visit Ralph Elfand in his Midtown hospice.
He reminds me of Hector Salamanca fromBreaking Bad,albeit as if played by Alan Arkin.
Nixon, may that cocksucker motherfucker rot in hell!
he erupts as mention of the DEA rekindles his fire.
I grab my bike and pedal furiously.
Along the route, I pass storefront after storefront of shuttered weed shops.
Recent weeks have seen a crackdown.
Over 600 stores have been closed, and word on the street is this time its for good.
The stores dozen employees stand in confusion on the sidewalk.
Unlike last year, Empire wont be opening a few hours later this time.
The manager protests, Were a club!
The deputy retorts, You dont have a license.
Maybe try getting one.
Before peeling away in her own car, Lenore tells me, Weve been waiting for this for years.
She speeds off down Seventh Avenue toward City Hall to protest the closure.
Over the next two months, with their competition culled, licensed shops such as Conbud double their profits.
On June 2, I attend Piff Con, the black-market weed-dealer convention, in Jamaica, Queens.
Im onstage watching White Boy Kev judge the Piff of the Year Award.
Why not launch another serv?
The black market will never die.
