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Flower to the people: Hundreds gather for 50th annual NYC Cannabis Parade and Rally
By
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky
Published May 6, 2023
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Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky/Gothamist
By
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky
Published May 6, 2023
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On Saturday afternoon in Union Square, New Yorkers queued up in long lines outside green tents emblazoned with the city’s logo. The coveted merch they were waiting for? T-shirts emblazoned with the We Love NYC logo — though the heart was replaced with a marijuana leaf.
“We love – uh, sorry – we canna NYC,” said volunteer Bobby Bakez as he held up one of the lavender T-shirts.
The T-shirts were among a variety of merchandise on offer at the 50th annual NYC Cannabis Parade and Rally, an annual gathering for vendors, advocates, enthusiasts and even regulators of the psychoactive plant. Attendees marched down Broadway from Greeley Square in Midtown, sporting faux-plant hair decorations, glittering pot leaf-shaped sunglasses, and even gigantic, custom-made green top hats.
Afterward, participants rallied in Union Square Park to listen to speeches as well as enjoy musical performances and the aforementioned swag, which included purple pot leaf-covered drawstring bags and lockboxes to safely keep their weed out of the reach of children and pets.
The sunny weather drew hundreds of participants – an improvement over the last few parades, which were hampered by the pandemic and poor weather.
“This is amazing,” Bakez said. “Just to be outside again, to be able to bring this awareness to everyone, to be able to share our love for this plant, and our love for our culture and our community is something that we've been waiting for since legalization came into the state of New York.”
The event’s sponsors included Cannabis NYC, the branch of the city’s Department of Small Business Services dedicated to marijuana entrepreneurship. Its logo adorned many of the tents set up alongside the usual farmer’s market stalls.
It was a far cry from the earliest iterations of the parade, which began in 1973 as a “smoke-in” to promote cannabis decriminalization. Now, more than two years after New York state legalized recreational marijuana, attendees celebrated the progress they’d made – while calling on the city and state to change the way they handle unlicensed dispensaries. The recently passed New York state budget included a crackdown on the unofficial shops, and the city has its own task force for the same purpose.
“I think the state needs to remember what the original intent of legalization was, which was justice, equity and reinvestment,” said Mary Kruger, a cannabis advocate. She added that the new legislation risks “further criminalizing people who are selling cannabis in the unregulated space.”
“We just need to be careful not to be taking [a] step backwards when we're the most progressive state in the country at this point,” Kruger said.
Even nonsmokers said they saw the positive effects of cannabis legalization in their daily lives. Although oncology nurse Cindy Robles doesn’t partake in marijuana herself, she said she has seen it work wonders for her patients.
“Now it's so much easier for them to get the marijuana,” she said. “It’s not such a big stigma anymore, so they're able to do it without so much judgment.”
Tagged
cannabis
Health and Science
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky
Jaclyn is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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