New York City Mayor Eric Adams celebrated his crackdown on illegal smoke shops in the city by overseeing the destruction of over 8,000 pounds of cannabis products seized in ‘Operation Padlock.’ Adams, along with other city officials, gathered at a facility outside of New York City where a crane lifted the four tons of seized cannabis into an incinerator.
The mayor stressed the importance of destroying the product to prevent its re-entry into the community. “We don’t want it recycled back into the communities. Placing it in a landfill, just really opens the door for them to salvage whatever they can. The goal is the destruction of the product,” Adams said. He emphasized that no one would be able to get high from the cannabis being incinerated.
The facility’s operator, Bobby Green, explained that a filtration system would ensure that nearly all the fumes from the burning cannabis would be scrubbed, leaving primarily water vapor. The heat from the incineration process is used to generate renewable energy that powers the facility and approximately 65,000 homes on Long Island.
‘Operation Padlock’ is a joint law enforcement effort involving the NYPD, the New York City sheriff, and other city and state agencies. Since its inception, the operation has shut down over a thousand illegal smoke shops.
