For Degelis Tufts, the last election cycle showed her the potential for cannabis. The product creator, executive and former investment banking analyst knew it was a movement she wanted to become involved in. Tufts explained to The Marijuana Times, “I believed it was un-American to not have the right to choose to consume. For me, it is a freedom issue and representative of our core values as a country.”
If New York legalizes marijuana, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that he wants it to become a small business community-based industry.
While he noted he certainly has concerned about the health and safety aspects of legalized marijuana in New York, he’s more worried about the potential corporatization of the drug.
"My goal is that we avoid the corporatization of the marijuana industry,” the mayor told an audience, including two Albany lawmakers on Thursday.
Last week, I spoke with a college graduate in his late twenties who makes his living selling cannabis in New York, where he moved, from the Midwest, several years ago. He referred to himself as a “care provider,” and asked that I not disclose his real name. He worked in finance and freelance Web design and marketing before shifting to his current career, he said. He sells marijuana in varying amounts, from an eighth of an ounce to a full pound or more, and also sells vaporizer cartridges, infused drinks, cannabis edibles, and psychedelic mushrooms.
Some state and city leaders have started to discuss the idea of making recreational marijuana legal and using the revenue to pay for badly-needed and expensive subway upgrades. The proposal could face improved odds in Albany now that Democrats have taken full control of the State Legislature for the first time in a decade.
New York state is hosting three public listening sessions this week in New York City to gather input on proposals to legalize recreational marijuana.
The meetings are scheduled for Monday in Queens, Tuesday in Brooklyn and Wednesday on Staten Island.
Several listening sessions have already been held upstate, and more are planned throughout the state.
On Friday two more in Westchester and Suffolk counties were added to the calendar for October.
Over 3,000 low-level marijuana cases were thrown out Wednesday as Manhattan's top prosecutor furthered a shift away from arresting and prosecuting many people for small-time pot offenses in the nation's biggest city.
This weekend, the New York Police Department implemented a new marijuana policy intended to finally put a stop to the disproportionate enforcement of prohibition laws against communities of color.
A national medical marijuana dispensary brand is planting its roots in Forest Hills.
Curaleaf New York will become the second pot dispensary to set up shop in Queens when it opens a 3,000-square-foot storefront at 107-18 70th Road this summer, owners announced Tuesday.
To say that Mayor Bill de Blasio is under a lot of pressure to reform policing in New York City would be an understatement. Among the myriad issues and complaints against the NYPD, a recent report shows that New York’s finest has arrested a disproportionate number of minorities for marijuana possession. In response to public uproar, De Blasio announced last week that the NYPD will be making major changes. First and foremost, they will no longer be arresting people for possessing small amounts of weed.
Unequal Policing in New York City
Black and brown New Yorkers continue to face marijuana arrests at rates nearly 10 times those of whites, despite early promises from Mayor Bill de Blasio to close the racial disparity.
While marijuana arrests have dropped significantly since the mayor took office, 86 percent of the people arrested for marijuana possession in the fifth degree during 2017 were people of color; 48 percent were black and 38 percent were Hispanic. Only 9 percent were white.