NYC’s $30 Million Weed Bonfire: Inside the City’s Most Expensive Burn

In August 2024, New York City Mayor Eric Adams climbed into heavy machinery and burned weed — four tons of it.

The New York City mayor personally operated heavy machinery to dump bags upon bags of seized cannabis products into an industrial incinerator at a facility in Westbury. 

The estimated street value of what went up in smoke ranged from $30 million to $55 million, depending on how the product was priced and how generous one’s assumptions were about quality.

The spectacle was part of Operation Padlock to Protect, the city’s aggressive crackdown on unlicensed smoke shops that had been proliferating across the five boroughs. By that point, the initiative had already shuttered more than 1,000 illegal shops and seized approximately $63 million in illicit goods.

CBS News video footage shows NYC mayor Eric Adams personally destroying massive quantities of these seized cannabis products via a crane claw, physically feeding them into an industrial incinerator. 

The seized products reflected the reality of New York’s gray market: vapes, edibles, flower, and packaging designed to mimic familiar snacks and cereal brands. These are the kinds of products that end up in unlicensed bodegas and smoke shops, sold without any of the testing or regulation that licensed dispensaries are required to follow.

When asked why the city chose incineration over landfill disposal, Adams answered:

“The goal is, we don’t want to recycle back into the communities. You place it in a landfill, you just really open the door of people going to the landfills and trying to salvage whatever they can. The goal is the destruction of the product and not to just dump it somewhere and allow it to sit around.”

Fair point. When NYC burns weed on this scale, the last thing anyone wants is people digging through garbage to recover it. The incineration approach, while pretty dramatic, makes sense when Eric Adams burns weed that could otherwise find its way back onto the streets.

Burning four tons of cannabis raises an obvious question: what about the smoke?

City officials were quick to address that concern. The facility used for the burn is equipped with industrial-grade filtration systems designed to scrub emissions before they exit the stack.

Bobby Green, who spoke at the event, explained the process: 

“We have a lot of filtration systems on the back half of the boiler that allow us to scrub all of that material, to scrub all those fumes, so that what actually exits out of our stack is about 99.9 percent water vapor and normal constituents that you would find in normal air that we’re breathing right now.”

Despite jokes from reporters about contact highs, Adams shut that idea down quickly.

“No one would be getting high off of what we’re burning today. Trust me.”

The burn was only one piece of Operation Padlock to Protect, a campaign aimed at dismantling New York’s sprawling unlicensed cannabis economy.

Chief Advisor Ingrid P. Lewis-Martin framed the stakes clearly: 

“These shops are especially dangerous to children, and have been a major impediment to the financial stability of legal cannabis dispensaries.”

That distinction matters. Licensed dispensaries in New York must follow strict regulations regarding testing, packaging, and taxation. Unlicensed shops do not. They can undercut legal prices because they’re not paying taxes or compliance costs, which makes it nearly impossible for licensed operators to compete. 

When Eric Adams burned over 4 tons of weed products from illegal cannabis operations, part of the goal was to level a playing field that’s been tilted against licensed businesses.

During the event, Adams also highlighted a more urgent concern: safety. Officials confirmed that some seized products had tested positive for dangerous additives, including fentanyl.

Asked about consumers who choose illegal shops to avoid cannabis taxes, Adams offered a stark comparison:

“You could pay the financial tax, or you could pay the physical tax. The physical tax is these illegal products. They’re laced. They’re dangerous. You don’t know what you’re getting.”

The public destruction, Adams suggested, was meant to underscore that risk — not just to punish sellers, but to warn buyers.

No amount of policy framing could outshine the moment that sent the footage viral.

Before dropping the cannabis into the incinerator, Adams was caught on camera lifting a bag and taking a long, deliberate smell. That Eric Adams weed sniff went viral and spawned a Reddit thread full of opinions.

Some users joked about how the mayor looks a little too familiar with the product:

“Mf that’s a reflex.”

“He’s like: ‘Yeah, I will be incinerating some of that inside some rolling papers later on…’”

“Damn this shit weak af.”

Others had thoughts on more creative methods:

“Let’s incinerate it in a series of small fires. With some Doritos and XBox.”

“You might want to filter the smoke through water somehow so it filters and cools the smoke… It’s better for the environment of course.”

The Eric Adams weed sniff became one of those internet moments that takes on a life of its own. Whether he was genuinely curious about the product quality or just performing for cameras, the image of a sitting mayor huffing a bag of seized cannabis before destroying it is objectively funny.

When Eric Adams burns weed, it’s not subtle. Four tons, $30-55 million in estimated value, heavy machinery, and a viral sniff that launched a thousand memes.

Whether the crackdown actually shifts consumers toward licensed dispensaries remains to be seen. The price gap between legal and illegal products persists, and shutting down 1,000 shops doesn’t mean demand disappears. But for one day in Westbury, four tons of seized cannabis were filtered, scrubbed, and released as 99.9% water vapor.

And somewhere, a Reddit user is still suggesting they should have used a bong instead.

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