High-Powered New York Lobby Firm Launches Cannabis Practice Group

A New York-based lobbying firm is launching a division to focus on cannabis legalization and other issues related to cannabis industry and policy, Syracuse.com reports. Park Strategies, which bills itself as a “strategic advisory and government relations firm” specializing in “highly regulated industries” such as energy, healthcare, casinos and gaming, and entertainment.

Park Strategies already represents the New York State Cannabis Growers Association—which it worked with in 2019 to pass the state’s Hemp Extracts law which governs the cultivation, processing and sales of non-THC hemp and cannabis products.

Joe Rossi, a managing director of the firm who will lead its Cannabis Practice Group, said that “there are still more questions than answers” on how the state’s cannabis industry regulations will work, and the group will “be on top of that.”

Alfonse D’Amato, Park Strategies founder and a former U.S. senator, added that the firm’s decision to launch the cannabis division was driven, in part, by the recent appointment of officials to the Office of Cannabis Management.

“With Governor Kathy Hochul’s prioritizing the cannabis law by making appointments to the cannabis office and governing board so quickly after having taken office tells us New York is serious about growing the cannabis industry in the state, and we are happy to be making our own investment to assure that success.”—D’Amato, in a statement, via Syracuse.com

Late last month, state lawmakers approved former Democratic Assemblywoman Termaine Wright was as chair of the Cannabis Control Board along with criminal justice reform advocate Christopher Alexander as the Office of Cannabis Management executive director.

The state is still in the process of setting up agencies and rules for legal cannabis sales—which is expected to commence in 2022 or early 2023.