Gov. Andrew Cuomo has set out an ambitious agenda for 2019 that he wants to accomplish in 100 days.
When it comes to legalizing marijuana for adult recreational use, Cuomo
and the New York State Legislature ought to take their time and get it
right. Otherwise, they risk causing harm that far outweighs the $300
million tax windfall they anticipate.
It seems a foregone conclusion that recreational marijuana will become legal in New York. Public opinion is in its favor. Medical marijuana is legal in more than half the states, including New York. Recreational use is legal in 10 states and the District of Columbia,
and 21 other states considered it in 2018, including New York. Our
neighbors to the north (Canada) and east (Massachusetts and Vermont)
already permit it.
Meanwhile, outlawing
marijuana use hasn’t been much of a deterrent. In one survey, 1 in 10
New Yorkers said they had used pot in the past month. Kids report
marijuana is easy to obtain. Where the law has been effective is in
putting tens of thousands of people, disproportionately blacks and
Latinos, into the criminal justice system for a minor offense. On
average, 60 people are arrested for marijuana possession every day
in New York, burdening police and the courts, and damaging the
defendants’ future prospects of employment. If pot becomes legal, those
convictions will be expunged and revenue from pot sales will be directed
to communities harmed by its criminalization, the governor said.
For
every argument in favor of marijuana legalization, there is an equally
compelling argument against it. Smoking marijuana causes lung disease.
Driving under the influence of marijuana is a danger to others, and is
harder to detect than alcohol intoxication. Pot can harm young,
developing brains. Young children may be attracted to candy-like
marijuana “edibles.” People can become addicted.
Those are real risks. Last year, the state Health Department concluded
they were outweighed by the benefits of regulating cannabis:
controlling the quantity, quality and potency of pot; drying up demand
for dangerous synthetic marijuana; and raising hundreds of millions of
dollars in revenue from what now is a black market.
With
some reservations, we have come around to the governor’s point of view.
Society allows adults to drink alcohol and smoke tobacco, despite their
known risks. We try to prevent young people from using those products.
Why should marijuana be any different?
As they write the rules for a regulated cannabis market, the governor and legislators have some thorny questions to answer:
- How will they mitigate the harms we know marijuana can cause? New York state’s county health officials oppose legalizing marijuana for its negative impact on public health. County social services departments will be on the front lines of dealing with the consequences of addiction – job loss, child neglect and the need for more drug treatment. A healthy portion of the tax revenue from marijuana sales should be earmarked for county-level public health outreach and response.
- How will they decide who will get the lucrative licenses to grow and distribute pot? If they use the model adopted by the Health Department for the medical marijuana program, we’re in trouble. The selection process was not transparent and the scoring of applications appears to have been subjective. As Syracuse.com has reported, it helped to have political connections.
- How will they keep marijuana out of the hands of young people? The Health Department’s study said a regulated market would curb availability to underage users. That has not been the experience in Colorado, where youth marijuana use jumped 20 percent the year after legalization.
- How will they discourage people from driving under the influence of marijuana? Unlike tests for alcohol intoxication, tests for THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, are not always a reliable indicator of impairment. Data from Colorado and Washington, the first states to legalize recreational marijuana, show a marked increase in marijuana-related traffic fatalities. Colorado officials were so alarmed, they began a “Drive High, get a DUI” campaign and a series of “cannabis conversations” to engage the public in finding solutions to drugged driving.
- What else can New York learn from the other states that have legalized marijuana? By now, there ought to be some well-established best practices and known pitfalls to avoid.
Even
if the Legislature passes a bill in this session legalizing adult use
of recreational marijuana, it will take years to get the program off the
ground. New York should not rush the critical first step for the sake
of meeting an artificial deadline.
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