High stakes for weed growers amid slow N.Y. legalization rollout

When New York authorities gave him a license to cultivate cannabis in the spring of 2022, Marcos Ribeiro thought he'd hit the big time.

Since then his plants have flowered, but like other producers he has amassed a stockpile which still he hopes to sell.

In a greenhouse in Long Island, two hours from Manhattan's gleaming skyscrapers, Ribeiro was surrounded by hundreds of leafy, pungent plants, each of which can produce pounds worth of flowers, tending to a harvest of "Blue Dream" strain.