Last week, I spoke with a college graduate in his late twenties who makes his living selling cannabis in New York, where he moved, from the Midwest, several years ago. He referred to himself as a “care provider,” and asked that I not disclose his real name. He worked in finance and freelance Web design and marketing before shifting to his current career, he said. He sells marijuana in varying amounts, from an eighth of an ounce to a full pound or more, and also sells vaporizer cartridges, infused drinks, cannabis edibles, and psychedelic mushrooms. He makes a comfortable income, he said, and now has a few employees, who provide door-to-door service to around two hundred customers, primarily in Manhattan and Brooklyn. He told me that he also networks at underground cannabis events in New York, which he described as similar to farmers’ markets, “but for pot.”
Stu Zakim, who runs a New Jersey–based cannabis communications firm, and has attended similar events over the years, told me that they were usually advertised through Internet meet-up groups. “It’s targeted more to the connoisseur than the casual consumer,” he said. “It’s like tasting wine at a fine vineyard.” Sirita Wright, the co-founder of a cannabis life-style media company based in New York and Colorado, said that she attended one event “that was all about desserts: ice cream, infused-caramel popcorns, things like that.” Zakim and Wright both told me that they had seen evidence of synergy between the legal market and the black market. “There are things I’ve consumed that were removed from legal sale,” Zakim said. Wright said, “Every so often I’m able to get my hands on products that definitely don’t originate here. I’m, like, ‘How the hell did y’all get this?’ ”
The New York–area “care provider” I spoke to mentioned a few such products, which he was considering adding to his offerings: water-soluble THC drops and an oral spray. “There’s nothing comparable back East,” he told me. He was in the middle of a business trip, he said, when he heard about Cuomo’s speech. His account of his role within the cannabis black market in New York, and his thoughts on its possible future in the wake of full legalization, have been edited and condensed.