Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed into law a bill to allow medical marijuana to be used as an alternative to opioids for pain management.
Earlier this year, the Department of Health added opioid replacement and opioid-use disorder to the list of conditions that qualify a patient to be prescribed medicinal marijuana in New York. This new law formalizes these previous changes in policy and legitimizes a medical professional's prescription.
New York state may see potential tax dollars go up in a puff of pot smoke.
With New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy leading a fast-track push to legalize recreational marijuana, pot dispensaries could soon be as close as a seven-minute train ride from Manhattan. Once people start hopping the PATH train to Jersey City to purchase marijuana, New York lawmakers will start feeling pressure about losing taxable sales, said Hadley Ford, chief executive officer of pot retailer iAnthus Capital Holdings Inc.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo took a step closer to voicing full-throated support for legal marijuana on Friday, embracing elements of a state Health Department report that favored legalization.
Mr. Cuomo, addressing reporters after an unrelated speech in Brooklyn, said New York would no longer have the option of trying to simply prevent the flow of the drug into the state now that its neighbors in Massachusetts and New Jersey are moving forward with plans to legalize the drug.
New York might be getting a step closer to legalizing marijuana.
The state health department has completed its much-anticipated study into the legalization of the drug, but as of the time of this writing it has not been released.
Sources said Tuesday that the study — which Gov. Andrew Cuomo commissioned earlier this year — highlights the benefits of legalization on criminal justice reforms and a tax on the drug, but it stops short of fully endorsing the legalization.