There might be more illegal weed shops than pigeons in Manhattan these days — including a glitzy storefront just 278 steps from City Hall. This probably wasn’t what Albany had in mind when it got into pot-pushing two years ago — but there you have it.

Truth to tell, New York’s plan to legalize weed, turn its distribution over to ex-cons and then scoop up sales taxes while making no serious effort to combat illegal competition always seemed weird.

In practice the scheme — while in its infancy — is a ballooning rebuke to Adams’ claim to a tough-on-crime mayoralty, and an anchor on Gotham’s hopes for an eventual return to pre-COVID normalcy. Almost literally outside Hizzoner’s office window stands Jungle Boys smoke shop — unlicensed and therefor illegal, but nevertheless doing a brisk cannabis business. City Hall staffers are among its customers, a clerk gleefully tells this newspaper, and who knows who else?

Indeed, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s HQ is just a 10-minute stroll away. Not that Bragg’s staffers should have to walk that far should they be so inclined. The illegal shops are everywhere.

But how did this happen?

That’s easy: Progressive Albany deems drug-law enforcement generally, and marijuana prosecution in particular, to be an affront to social justice. So in 2021 it effectively decriminalized pot possession while legalizing licensed sale — giving first dibs on permits to convicted former dealers (or, in contemporary Orwell-speak, “justice-involved individuals.”) Again, no one seems to have anticipated illegal competition.

But why such an oversight — given that drug dealers historically are both creatively entrepreneurial and lethally territorial? That’s anybody’s guess — there are enormous sums in loose cash in that universe — but the effective fact is that New York has lost the stomach for serious drug enforcement.

And it’s not just weed.

Used syringes litter city streets; there are pop-up shooting galleries in public spaces — and fentanyl overdoses are pacing an increasingly deadly opioid epidemic.

This is precisely the sort of thing mayoral candidate Adams promised to crack down on; yet 13 months into his first term, things are only getting worse. Indeed, to the extent that there is any serious official discussion of an enhanced approach to illegal drugs in New York, it has to do with needle-exchange programs and drop-in injection sites — and most certainly not with aggressive law enforcement and the impact of wide-spread public drug use on civic tranquility.

And there is, of course, spill-over. How much of New York’s economically paralyzing shoplifting epidemic, and its continuing subway madness, derives from drug addiction is an open question — but a smart answer would be: A lot.

Plus the NYPD last week reported a year-on-year 20% increase in reported felonies in 2022. A connection seems obvious, even if there is no firm data.

To be clear, this isn’t about weed legalization per se. It’s about the ideological, politicized and breathtakingly negligent approach to legalization that New York has chosen. Indeed, it’s part of the price imposed by progressive politics right across the board. New York needs to choose better.

Email: bob@bobmcmanus.nyc