New York’s first adult-use cannabis licenses will not be issued until 2023, according to the chair of the state's Cannabis Control Board (CCB).

CCB Chair Tremaine Wright said last week during a cannabis symposium in Rochester that the board is working on an 18-month timeline to launch the state’s adult-use cannabis market, according to a WXXI report. She said that the first adult-use dispensaries will likely be licensed in the spring of 2023 at the earliest.

“What we do control is getting [dispensaries] licensing and giving them all the tools so they can work within our systems,” Wright said, according to WXXI. “That’s what we are saying will be achieved in 18 months. Not that they’re open, not that they’ll be full-blown operations, because we don’t know that.”

The five-member CCB was established by Gov. Kathy Hochul in September to govern the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), which will oversee New York’s adult-use cannabis market, as well as its existing medical cannabis and hemp programs.

The Marijuana Regulation and Tax Act (MRTA), New York’s adult-use cannabis law, marks April 1, 2022, as the earliest date for the launch of the adult-use market, according to WXXI.