New York Prison Being Transformed Into $150 Million Cannabis Campus

The site of a former state prison in New York’s Hudson Valley is being transformed into a $150 million “cannabis campus” by Green Thumb Industries, one of the nation’s largest producers of legal marijuana. The planned facility at the former penitentiary in Warwick, New York will produce tens of thousands of pounds of cannabis for the state’s upcoming, recreational marijuana economy, which was legalized by legislators earlier this year.

Until 10 years ago, the 38-acre plot of land purchased by Green Thumb Industries (GTI) was part of the Mid-Orange Correctional Facility, housing inmates sent to prison for marijuana offenses and other crimes. The institution dates back to 1914, when it was opened as a drug and alcohol treatment center known as the New York City Farm. 

In the 1930s, the facility was converted to the New York State Training School for Boys to house wayward youth from the city. In the 1970s, the location was changed to a prison for adult inmates before being shut down by Andrew Cuomo in 2011, the governor of New York at the time.