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US state · America/New_York · last verified September 6, 2026
New York has an open medical market. Retail is licensed by the New York State Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), governed by the Cannabis Control Board.
50 verified facts on this page. Last verified September 6, 2026.
Compassionate Care Act (A6357-B) signed 2014-07-05 as Chapter 90 of 2014; the program now runs under Cannabis Law Article 3 and 9 NYCRR Part 113, with patient home cultivation under s.41 and Part 115.
Bloom has not verified which seed-to-sale system the state requires for New York yet. Nothing is asserted here in its place.
Check the regulator directly: New York State Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), governed by the Cannabis Control Board rules, New York State Department of Taxation and Finance site, New York State Office of Cannabis Management (Seed-to-Sale program) site, New York State Office of Cannabis Management (Medical Cannabis Program) rules, New York State Legislature (Senate and Assembly) rules.
A municipality may not allow adult-use retail sales between 2:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. unless it has given express written permission or passed a local law authorizing those hours, so the default statewide sales window is 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.
A retail dispensary may sell only during the designated hours of operation stated in its licence application or operating plan, and must post those hours visible to consumers inside the premises along with the licence and the allowable possession and purchase limits.
No retail dispensary may sell, deliver or give away any cannabis or cannabis product to any individual actually or seemingly under 21 years of age, or to any visibly intoxicated individual.
Staff must inspect the individual's identification and determine their age before sale, and only a listed document type counts: a US or Canadian provincial driver licence or non-driver ID, a federal, state or local government photo ID including IDNYC, a passport from any country, a consular identification card, or a US armed forces ID.
A retail dispensary may not knowingly sell, deliver or give a consumer any cannabis product, paraphernalia or merchandise if the consumer is unable to produce valid government-issued identification and age confirming they are 21 or older.
A retail dispensary may not acquire or record cannabis consumer personal information without consent, unless the information is one typically acquired in a sales transaction, which can include the consumer's age.
Block a sale of any amount the dispensary knows would put the consumer over the Penal Law possession limits of three ounces of cannabis and twenty-four grams of concentrated cannabis.
A dispensary may not knowingly sell where the consumer or the public would be placed at risk, including where the consumer is engaging in daily transactions that exceed the legal possession limits or create a risk of diversion.
Every retail dispensary must have a named employee in charge who oversees conduct of employees, immediate supervision and management during hours of operation, opening and closing, inventory and delivery acceptance, recordkeeping, training, the staffing plan and turning away individuals who present a risk; no employee may be the employee in charge of more than one dispensary at the same time.
Cannabis products may be sold only by authorized employees who are 21 or older if interacting with consumers; a licensee may not employ anyone under 18 at all, and an employee aged 18 to 20 may not deliver to consumers or have direct interaction with customers inside a dispensary or consumption facility.
All cannabis must be physically tagged or labelled with the unique identifier generated by the inventory tracking system and tracked in real time, so a sale line without a package UID cannot be completed.
Each sales transaction record must be sent to the Office's inventory tracking system in real time with enough detail to determine taxability and tax due, including items and quantities, selling price, tax due delineated per article 20-C tax, method of payment, the selling employee's first name and last initial, the device used, a unique transaction identifier and the date and time of sale.
A consumer must be offered a receipt showing the dispensary name, address and licence number, date and time of sale, the form and quantity of every item sold, the first name and last initial of the employee completing the sale, the delivery licensee's licence number where one fulfilled the sale, and the tax paid delineated separately for each article 20-C tax.
Every item displayed for sale needs a price tag, sign or placard, prices must appear on any consumer-facing menu and on the licensee's website, and wherever a price is displayed the total cost including all taxes the consumer would pay must be displayed separately in a similar font size.
A retail dispensary may not sell any cannabis product that has not passed quality assurance laboratory testing under 9 NYCRR Part 130.
A dispensary may not sell or dispense any cannabis product past the expiration or use by date on its label; holding an outdated product in secure segregation for disposal is not a violation.
A dispensary may not sell a product that fails the Part 128 packaging and labelling rules. The retail package or marketing layer must carry the universal symbol at the prescribed minimum size plus the warnings "This product contains cannabis and THC", "KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN AND PETS. For use only by persons 21 years of age and older", "Warning: Do not use if pregnant or nursing", "Poison Center 1-800-222-1222", the form-specific warning for smoked, ingested or topical products, and one rotating health warning, all at 6 point minimum in an approved font.
Nothing may move without a shipping manifest generated before transport, transmitted to the receiving party, naming both parties with addresses and licence numbers, the unique identification numbers of everything on board, product type and weight or count, estimated departure and arrival times, and the driver licence number and vehicle make, model and plate.
The receiving licensee must verify that what it takes into possession matches the manifest, and may not take in anything not on the manifest or in an amount above or below the manifest unless a reconciliation process has determined the cause of the discrepancy; manifest data must be captured in the inventory tracking system.
A retail dispensary may not sell products obtained from, or accept a sale from, any business that does not hold a New York licence under article 4 of the Cannabis Law, and may acquire products only from a licensee authorized for distribution or, for plants and seeds, from a nursery.
Inventory adjustments must be recorded in real time in the tracking system with the type of cannabis, weight, volume or count, the date, the lot unique identifier, the identity of the employee performing the action and the type of activity, covering cultivation, processing, transport, testing, distribution, waste, sale, disposal and product return.
A significant inventory discrepancy must be reported to the Office no later than 24 hours after discovery. For a retail dispensary, delivery or on-site consumption licensee, significant means 5 percent or more where the system anticipated 1,000 products or fewer, and 2 percent or more where it anticipated more than 1,000.
A licensee must maintain real-time inventory tracking, conduct a monthly inventory audit of all cannabis and cannabis products and an annual audit at least once every year from the previous one, and record the auditing employees names and signatures, the audit date and a summary of findings in the tracking system. A retail dispensary must additionally run a monthly analysis of its inventory tracking system to confirm no software has been installed and no other method employed that could manipulate or alter inventory or sales data.
On loss of access to the inventory tracking system the licensee must keep comprehensive manual records, document the cause and the times access was lost and restored, enter everything within three calendar days of restoration, and may not initiate transport for, receive, transfer or deliver any cannabis to another licensed entity until access is restored and recorded or the Office approves operating during the outage.
Delivery is lawful in New York and needs no separate approval from the Office. A retail dispensary may deliver with its own employees under a written delivery service plan, a microbusiness may deliver its own products if authorized on its application, and a standalone delivery licensee may courier for a retailer. Every delivery must be against an order placed and paid for by the consumer before the delivery.
A person delivering to a consumer must be an employee of the licensee and at least 21 years old, must carry identification as an employee including the licence number of the licensee they are transporting for, may not solicit orders from potential consumers, may not buy product and seek reimbursement from the recipient, and may not work concurrent shifts delivering for more than one retail dispensary licensee.
Every delivery run needs a shipping manifest generated before departure and carried by the employee, plus a consumer invoice that may double as the receipt and must carry all the receipt fields, the consumer name, address and signature, and the first name, last initial and signature of each employee performing or accompanying the delivery. The manifest must be updated to reflect remaining inventory after every order is delivered.
Product must ride in transport owned, leased or exclusively operated by the licensee, fitted with temperature controls, a fully enclosed and locked box, container or cage, and an operational GPS device the originating licensee can read at any time. The transport may bear no marking indicating cannabis, may not be an unmanned vehicle or drone, is treated as an extension of the licensed premises, and only the licensee or its employees may be in it while it carries cannabis.
A delivery employee may not possess more than $20,000 of cannabis products in the aggregate at any time in an enclosed vehicle, or more than $5,000 in a non-enclosed vehicle such as a bike or scooter or while on foot, and at least 30 percent of the retail value on board must already be ordered and paid for before the employee leaves the licensed location.
Delivery may go only to residential properties, including short and long term residences, and to private businesses anywhere in New York State. It may never go to a public building, a public space including a park, a community centre, school grounds, a day care centre, a house of worship, to anyone inside a motor vehicle, or to any location outside New York State.
Local opt-out does not stop delivery. Nothing prohibits delivering cannabis products into a town, city or village that has prohibited the establishment of a retail dispensary by local law, or delivering into a local jurisdiction beyond that jurisdiction hours for retail sales, provided the delivery occurs within the delivering dispensary own hours of operation.
Product may be handed only to the individual named in the order, after the delivering employee views or scans an accepted identification document at the point of delivery to verify identity and age. Where the person placing the order is not the person accepting it, the orderer must attest the recipient is over 21 and the recipient must verify identity and age at handover, and both identities must be recorded in the point of sale system.
Medical cannabis may be dispensed only by authorized employees aged 21 or older under the in-person supervision of an individual holding an active New York State pharmacist licence who has completed at least a two hour course, and no employee may counsel a patient or caregiver on use, administration or risks unless they are that pharmacist or a practitioner, or are 21 or older and under the direct supervision of and in consultation with one.
Cannabis product returned by a consumer may never be placed back into stock at any retail dispensary or re-dispensed; it must be quarantined for disposal under the recall and quarantine rules, and the licensee must keep written policies and procedures to monitor, track and resolve complaints, returns and quality assurance concerns.
Cannabis waste must be rendered unusable by grinding and mixing with other ground material so the result is at least 50 percent non-cannabis by weight, held in a secured receptacle or area on the premises until disposal, and weighed, recorded and entered into the inventory tracking system before mixing and disposal. The disposal record must carry the first name, last initial and signature of at least TWO of the licensee employees who witnessed the disposal, and must be kept five years.
A dispensary may not provide cannabis samples to a consumer other than to allow inspection before purchase, and may not advertise through giveaways of free or donated cannabis products. Discounts, coupons, points-based rewards, loyalty programs and bundled discounts are allowed only if they do not sell below market value and the retail tax is calculated on the pre-discount price so as not to subvert state and local tax collections.
A New York supplier may not pay a retailer for placement. No nursery, research licensee, cultivator, processor, distributor, microbusiness, cooperative, ROD or ROND may advance, and no licensee authorized for retail sale or delivery may receive, money or a benefit equivalent to money by any agreement or business practice, expressly including gifts, discounts, loyalty programs, loans, premiums, rebates, royalties, free cannabis product, PREFERENTIAL SHELF SPACE OR DISPLAYS, and treats or services of any nature. Category management, planograms, shelf schematics, slotting and other preferential practices are separately banned.
Every advertisement must carry the 21-and-older warning naming children, pets and the Poison Center, one rotating health warning from the prescribed list, the New York HOPEline contact, and the licensee name and licence number, printed in Times New Roman, Calibri, Arial or Helvetica at 6 point or larger in a bright yellow text box. Advertising may not be attractive to under-21s, false or misleading, promote overconsumption, depict consumption or smoking imagery, promote potency, make medical or wellness claims, claim safety because of regulation, appear within 500 feet of a school, playground, day care, public park or library, appear on public transit or publicly owned property, or take the form of a billboard.
Records must be kept at least five years from creation, readily retrievable, legible, accurate and stored securely, covering floorplans, financial records, personnel and training records, contracts, advertising and marketing records, standard operating procedures and laboratory results. Shipping manifests and delivery invoices are separately held for five years, waste disposal records for five years, and surveillance recordings for at least 60 days. A security breach or other listed incident must be reported to the Office within 24 hours of discovery, with a written incident report within 10 calendar days.
Before dispensing, the site must take a valid practitioner certification, which doubles as the registry card, plus a valid government-issued photo ID validating the patient is 18 or older and capable of consent, and must use the certification number as the registry identification. A caregiver must present a certification under 9 NYCRR 113.3 plus caregiver photo identification. Every dispensing event must be filed electronically with the Office no later than 24 hours after it happens.
Bloom is compliance software and source-linked regulatory information, not legal advice. A licensee remains responsible for its own compliance. Verify against the cited source.
Response generated October 23, 2026.