When Crystal Peoples-Stokes emerged from a multi-state “Cannabis and Vaping Summit” in a Midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom on Thursday afternoon, she was modestly upbeat, but not gushing. Peoples-Stokes has been trying to get marijuana legalized in New York for six years.
“It was better than I anticipated,” the Assembly Majority Leader said. “I was a little skeptical going in. I’ve heard a lot of rhetoric before.”
The four-hour parlay held behind closed doors was hosted by four of this region’s center-left governors: New York’s Andrew Cuomo, New Jersey’s Phil Murphy, Connecticut’s Ned Lamont, and Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf. The idea for a meeting began with Cuomo and Lamont on a fishing trip, comparing notes on issues that Cuomo would later call “complicated, controversial and consequential”–legalizing marijuana for adult recreational use and regulating vaping, which has recently been implicated in public health problems.
In opening comments–the only ones the governors permitted reporters to observe–they touched briefly on common elements of vaping and cannabis. Both have little or no federal regulation, and both have the potential for cross-border shenanigans, especially in the metropolitan area, where if something is unavailable or too expensive, it’s relatively easy to go to another state to procure it.
Shortly after the session concluded, Cuomo’s office sent out a 32-bullet declaration of “core principles” among the four governors. These are elements they all would like to see in their respective states’ future legislative packages, leading to a “coordinated” regional approach to regulating vaping and marijuana.