With less than 24 hours until the first adult-use sales, New Haven city leaders say they’re worried about the impact on children.
“It’s real important that we keep our children safe, and we use it in the right way,” said New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson.
Over the last two school years, students in several different grade levels throughout the district have brought cannabis products to schools. It happened twice at Bishop Woods School. Each incident prompted calls for emergency responders and a trip to the hospital.
“So, of course this is a concern for us at the health department,” Health Director Maritza Bond said.
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They’ve launched a campaign for young people, saying there’s nothing recreational about marijuana. And they’re asking adults to lock it, label it and limit how much is in the home.
“Be socially responsible,” Bond said. “And as a parent, we want to also be socially responsible in making sure that we are thinking about our children because we can also see the impact it can have.”
There’s also legal impact on adults if children consume cannabis, either accidentally or if adults supply it to people under 21.
“The potential consequence is risk to injury which is a felony,” Jacobson said. “We have seen charges like that where it wasn’t locked up and it was accessible to people underage.”
The department will have extra patrols for traffic Tuesday at Affinity Health and Wellness in New Haven. They’ll also watch for illegal street sales of marijuana, which Jacobson says is often laced with other drugs.
“This is a prime opportunity [for illegal sales], and I can see why the law is good so that you can get safe cannabis to use,” Jacobson said.
Cannabis in Connecticut: Recreational Sales Start Tuesday
He also reminded consumers that it is a federal offense to carry products across state lines, and it’s illegal for drivers and passengers to have open products in the car.
He also said you can’t smoke in New Haven where tobacco smoke is prohibited, like at city parks, schools and inside buildings.
Retailers are expecting lines around the state Tuesday, so they’re working to ease any fears that medical patients may have about access.
"The medical clients that we do have, they’ll be expedited to the front of the line, they will have priority entrance, they won’t have to wait,” said Ray Pantalena of Affinity Health and Wellness.
One medical patient spoke to NBC Connecticut as she picked up her product today. She didn’t want to give her name, but said although the process inside will be different, she doesn’t think it will be a problem when retail sales start.
“There’s a couple of different lines that we can go into,” she said. “Three lines are express lines just for medical and the rest is for adult-use.”
With more demand for product, there was some concern at the state level that medical patients could be impacted. Pantalena said officials took that into consideration.
“They looked at available product, they looked at the pipeline coming from the producers, what they anticipate the sales to be, so they did limit it back to a quarter of an ounce to make sure there wouldn’t be any shortages,” Pantalena said.
Medical patients also have access to products with higher levels of THC, so there’s a wider variety for them to choose from. The patient says there’s two menus for products.
“So, I just feel like that made it easier for us as medical carriers of going in and being able to get what we want without having to worry about ‘okay well they’re going to go in and take up everything so let’s just hurry up and get what we need,’” she said.
Starting in July, the $100 state registration fee for medical patients will go away. It’s offset by 17% state sales tax on adult-use products. There’s also another 3% that goes to local municipalities where the hybrid stores are located.
