The High-Lite is a series created by the High Exposure Agency to shine a light on the advocates, founders, farmers, legislators, dispensary owners, processors (and more) who are building the New York cannabis market.
Damian Fagon is a former New York State cannabis regulator and third-generation farmer. He directs the Bronx Cannabis Hub and is a Fellow at the Parabola Center for Law and Policy.
1. You’re working with organizations doing vital work in markets with communities disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs. Tell us more about The Bronx Cannabis Hub and the Parabola Center.
The Bronx Cannabis Hub assists justice-involved New Yorkers in applying for licenses through a complex and under-supported state process; we support them with incorporation, compliance, real estate, financing, market entry, and expansion. Working with pro bono law firms and New York law schools, we’re preparing to open our 15th hub member dispensary, meaning roughly 60% of our inaugural cohort made it from application to opening in one of the country’s most difficult cannabis markets.
Parabola Center is a nonpartisan team of lawyers, organizers, and policy experts working to ensure legalization protects public health, expands opportunity, and delivers meaningful participation for small businesses and impacted communities. Most of our work is in the US, but it is increasingly global as more countries explore legalization. We provide independent analysis that connects regulatory choices to market outcomes.
2. What’s one lesson from the NYS Office of Cannabis Management, The Bronx Cannabis Hub, and the Parabola Center you believe everyone should know?
OCM: The patterns we see in business ownership, wealth disparities, and corporate concentration did not happen by accident. They are the result of decades of policy decisions made in rooms most affected communities were never in.
Hub: New York’s CAURD program worked because community organizations brought real capacity to the table. Groups like The Bronx Defenders and others stepped in with the legal and technical support the program itself did not provide.
Parabola: Legal cannabis needs a lot more independent, nonpartisan policy institutions that are not financially tied to the industry. As countries, especially in the Global South, look at cannabis models beyond straight commercialization, that independence really matters.
3. Your background is unique because you spent time on the cultivation side. What are some things you learned while farming that you implemented in your various administrative roles?
You can plan, optimize, and do everything right and still not control the outcome. That experience made me skeptical of regulatory and administrative approaches that assume precision. The systems that last, on farms and in markets, are the ones built to adapt when conditions change. Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile puts useful language to that idea.
4. What is your favorite strain?
“Lemon Haze.”
5. What is your favorite form of consumption?
A dry herb vaporizer. I live in a one-bedroom with a partner who has strong feelings about the smell. I miss joints, but I’d miss her a lot more.
