Bargain buzz: NY pot farm moves 100,000 economical ‘dime bags’ under legalization
It’s a buzz for a bargain.
Hudson Cannabis, a 500-acre Hudson Valley “seed to smoke” weed farm, has achieved the milestone of delivering more than 100,000 budget-friendly legal dime bags — sold for $10 retail, or even less — at licensed retail pot shops throughout the state.
Since legalization, many dispensaries and cultivators have favored selling cannabis in one-eighth of an ounce increments, for as much as $70.
But Hudson Cannabis was the first to also package and legally deliver cannabis in old-school “dime” bags starting nearly two years ago — enough for customers on a tight budget to roll a small joint or sample a new brand or strain.
“We’re thrilled to have sold over 100,000 dime bags in New York State. Our choice to sell in dime bags not only honors the traditional way cannabis was sold but also makes New York-grown flower accessible to everyone,” said Hudson Cannabis CEO Melany Dobson, a co-founder who runs the farm with her sister, Freya.
“Each dime bag is compostable, biodegradable, and part of our closed-loop system—focused on the plant, not on packaging. If you’d told me ten years ago that we’d sell over $1 million worth of these bags, I’d have thought it was a dream.”
Hudson Cannabis packages and delivers its dime bags and other flowered weed products to 131 licensed dispensaries throughout the state.
The pot farm employs 65 employees who cultivate, process, package and drive their goods to more than 100 retail stores. Everything is done at the farm, including distilling the flower into other THC-infused products such as edibles.
With the growth of the legal market, some days Hudson Cannabis has staffers doing nothing but packaging dime bags, each containing 0.7 grams — about a joint’s worth of cannabis.
“Some days It’s all hands on deck,” Melany Dobson said.
Hudson Cannabis also makes pre-rolled joints and provides larger quantities of weed, in packages from two grams to one-eighth of an ounce, as well as vape cartridges.
Melany Dobson likened buying dime bags, which contain product of higher quality and more potency than a pre-rolled joint, to customers seeking out whole-bean coffee.
Hudson Cannabis’ dime bags are a big hit with New York’s licensed pot store operators, who sometimes can barely keep them on the shelves.
Osbert Orduna, CEO of The Cannabis Place in Middle Village, Queens, even sells the dime bags for $8 to be more competitive.
“It’s very popular. We sell a lot of dime bags. We have it in different strains,” Orduna said.
“They have great products at super affordable prices. They have the most affordable products we carry,” he said of Hudson Cannabis.
The Dobson sisters are originally from the Berkshires, where their dad was an organic farmer who grew marijuana as well as vegetables.
They operated cannabis farms in Northern California in Mendocino and Humboldt County before opening their farm in Hudson in upstate Columbia County seven years ago. They started out growing hemp and then switched to cannabis after state lawmakers and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo legalized the plant for sale in 2021.
Housing Works and Union Square Travel Agency in Greenwich Village were among the first to sell the farm’s dime bags, but they’re also big sellers at Strain Stars in Farmingdale and Misha’s Flower Shop in Bushwick.
There are now 171 licensed cannabis stores and delivery services in the Empire State, including 71 in New York City. The first pot retail dispensaries opened in 2022.
The legal cannabis industry is gradually expanding, following a rocky rollout marred by lawsuits, bureaucratic bungling, spoiled crops and a flourishing illegal market.
Hundreds of illicit stores closed earlier this year under a tougher law approved by Gov. Kathy Hochul and beefed up enforcement by Mayor Eric Adams’ cannabis cops led by Sheriff Anthony Miranda.
