NY lawmakers near long-awaited deal to legalize marijuana
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New York lawmakers are poised to make marijuana possession legal. Eagle file photo by David Brand
By David Brand
New York lawmakers say they have nearly reached a deal to legalize the use and possession of marijuana, a measure Gov. Cuomo has pledged to sign.
The deal would make marijuana legal for adults 21 and over and establish a 13 percent sales tax. Nine percent of revenue would go to states and 4 percent to municipalities, lawmakers told the Eagle Wednesday. Legal weed distributors would pay a separate levy based on the potency of the cannabis. Towns can choose to ban marijuana sales, but counties cannot opt out.
The plan would allow adults to possess up to three grams of marijuana and grow plants at their homes, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The state will also establish an Office of Cannabis Management that reports to a five-member Independent Advisory Board. The governor will name three members, and the assembly and senate will each appoint one person to the board.
Cuomo has said lifting the prohibition on marijuana will generate more than $300 million for the state each year. He prioritized legal cannabis in his state of the state address in January and in his executive budget.
Fourteen other states, including neighboring New Jersey and Massachusetts, have already made marijuana legal.
The plan would have a social justice impact in the wake of the war on drugs, Cuomo has said. In his January address, he said legalizing marijuana would “end the over criminalization of this product that has left so many communities of color over policed and over incarcerated.”
Though low-level marijuana arrests have plummeted over the past several years, Black and Latino New Yorkers are still disproportionately impacted by the prohibition. They accounted for 92 percent of all marijuana arrests in New York City during the last three months of 2020, according to NYPD arrest data.
The state seemed poised to legalize marijuana during the 2019 and 2020 legislative sessions, but the measures ultimately failed over disputes about how to prioritize people of color for distribution licenses and dispensary jobs, as well as the amount of revenue split between the state and municipalities.
Advocates and progressive lawmakers say lifting the prohibition on marijuana must directly benefit the communities of color devastated by the war on drugs, which filled jails and prisons with people convicted of drug crimes, including low-level offenses.
Queens’ three legal marijuana dispensaries are each owned by large corporations led by white executives. Advocates say that dynamic has to change for an equitable legalization policy.
“We need to focus on clearing the pathways for those who have suffered the deepest,” Citizen Action New York Political Director Stanley Fritz told the Eagle earlier this month. “We’re facing a challenge now where New York could [legalize] in a way where the state could block poor Black and brown people from entering the industry — businesses in Black communities run by white people will dominate the industry if we do that.”
Attention will undoubtedly turn to New York district attorneys amid an effort to expunge marijuana-related convictions.
The state court system has created a form for people to apply to clear their low-level marijuana conviction records.
But the applications only apply to first- and second-degree unlawful possession convictions.
