War on drugs locked him up; now he’s a cannabis entrepreneur

By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — When the war on marijuana came sweeping through his New York City housing project decades ago, Roland Conner found himself going in and out of jail. Now, at age 50, he has opened the state’s first legal cannabis dispensary run by someone previously punished under New York’s old drug laws. The shop in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village opened to the public Tuesday with the state’s support. It is New York’s second legal place to buy recreational marijuana, but the first to benefit from a program that set aside dispensary licenses for people with pot-related criminal convictions.