As the date of the New York Democratic primary election draws near, Gov. Andrew Cuomo traded barbs with challenger and former Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon in a gubernatorial debate that touched on issues of corruption, experience, and legal cannabis. During his previous two terms as governor, Cuomo has opposed any attempts to legalize pot in the Empire State, but ever since Nixon announced that pot legalization was a major part of her political platform, the incumbent began changing his tune on marijuana.
Cuomo referred to cannabis as a “gateway drug” as recently as last year, as Nixon pointed out at the debate. But as support for his competitor grew, the governor began to accept the inevitability of marijuana legalization, and directed the state Department of Health to research the issue. At the debate, Cuomo noted that the resulting report was strongly in favor of legal marijuana, and said he now believed “that the benefits [of legalization] outweigh the risks.”
Nixon said that legalization would help address the social justice dilemma created by decades of prohibition laws being disproportionately enforced against communities of color. Nixon argued that the state needs to “prioritize the individuals and the communities that have been most harmed by the war on drugs,” and promised to use pot tax revenue to fund efforts to right historical wrongs.
