CRIME
How Marijuana Legalization Fell Short
Suburban, upstate hesistancy combined with confl ict over racial justice payouts
BY NATHAN RILEY
Last December, legalizing
adult use of pot seemed
like a sure thing in New
York. Governor Andrew
Cuomo, who had earlier damned
pot as a “gateway” drug and severely
restricted the state’s medical
marijuana program, changed
course and backed legal adult use.
Meanwhile, in last fall’s State Senate
elections, Democrats gained a
clean majority with pick-ups upstate
and on Long Island and the
ouster of six members of the Independent
Democratic Conference —
who had previously caucused with
the Republicans — by progressive
reformers deeply committed to
criminal justice reform.
In announcing his new position,
Cuomo mentioned “new facts.” One
new fact was New Jersey Governor
Phil Murphy’s enthusiastic support
for the legal sale of recreational
marijuana in the Garden State.
With legal pot just a PATH train
ride away, New York would look ridiculous
if it continued its ban and
allowed New Jersey’s tax coffers
to pocket the revenue from buyers
visiting from the Big Apple.
Cuomo, in explaining his new
position, stated that unjust marijuana
laws had “for too long targeted
the African-American and minority
communities.” His change of
heart had the blessing of his state
health department, which released
a report last July fi nding positive
benefi ts to legalization. The “pros
outweigh the cons,” wrote Dr. Howard
Zucker, the state health commissioner,
who emphasized the
safety benefi ts of having a product
tested in laboratories where dosage
is carefully labeled. The fear that
legalization would lead to a surge
in use among youth was belied by
statistics showing that 52 percent
of 18-year-olds had already tried it.
Legal prohibition was obviously doing
nothing to discourage pot use.
The “facts” behind Cuomo’s advocacy
of legalization began to
fade when Murphy’s efforts faltered
in New Jersey. As prospects
for change there went south so too
Buffalo State Assemblymember Crystal Peoples-Stokes, along with her Senate ally Liz Krueger of
Manhattan, insisted that marijuana legalization include racial justice payouts to communities most hurt
by racist law enforcement of drug laws.
did Cuomo’s concern about ending
discriminatory policing. According
to Manhattan Assemblymember
Richard Gottfried, a leading Democratic
advocate of legalization, as
state budget negotiations drew to a
close in late March, the three-way
discussions among the governor
and the leaders of the Assembly
and the Senate ironing out the administrative
details of legal sales
halted. The failure to include legalization
in the budget emboldened
opponents of legal sales.
A major harm of current marijuana
laws comes from racist law
enforcement. In 2010, New York
had the nation’s highest marijuana
arrest rate — double the national
average — giving 103,698 people
criminal records for possession.
It disproportionately criminalized
black and brown residents. In 2017
the problem persisted, Zucker’s
study concluded, with 86 percent
of arrests for marijuana possession
made among people of color — 48
percent were black and 38 percent
were Latinx. Only nine percent of
those arrested were white.
And marijuana arrests could not
be justifi ed as a good example of
broken windows policing. “It is rare
that these arrests lead to the discovery
of guns or violent crimes,”
the study concluded.
Meanwhile, these arrests resulted
in signifi cant trauma — both for
NYASSEMBLY.GOV
the arrestee and for their family.
These fi ndings energized Crystal
Peoples-Stokes of Buffalo, the
majority leader of the State Assembly,
who reasoned that too many
of her constituents were suffering
from the double burden of racial
discrimination and trying to fi nd
jobs with a criminal record.
In a recent phone interview, she
noted that The Wall Street Journal
estimates marijuana is a $53 billion
industry in the US but that
only $6.3 billion of that total is legal
and taxable. The failure to legalize
adult use, she said means “we are
allowing resources to walk out the
door that could change the face of
poverty in New York.” But since pot
law enforcement has been tainted
by racial and ethnic bias, she explained,
the tax money from legal
sales must be targeted toward
improving the communities most
harmed by that enforcement.
Democratic Senator Liz Krueger,
who represents Manhattan’s
East Side, sponsored the identical
bill in her chamber and 2019
presented her fi rst viable chance
to win majority support in her effort.
Senators representing the city
were on board with legalization,
but Democrats from suburban and
upstate districts faced constituent
opposition, especially from parents
concerned about young people
smoking pot and driving. Nassau
County went so far as to pass a local
law barring legal sales. Krueger
and her allies worked hard to satisfy
their concerns.
The bill went through three
drafts as its scope expanded to include
the state’s existing medical
marijuana program, and Krueger
explained that working out the
details of this comprehensive approach
was time-consuming, with
the Legislature simply running
out of time to reach a fi nal agreement
that included the governor’s
sign-off. Her colleagues facing constituent
opposition were reluctant
to support a bill that didn’t enjoy
Cuomo’s unambiguous support,
worrying he could turn around
and “bash” it.
According to the New York Times,
it was the racial justice payouts
advocated by Peoples-Stokes and
Krueger that proved the biggest
obstacle from Cuomo’s perspective.
The governor last December did not
spell out a vision for how the tax
revenues would be allocated, but
the Times, in a June 19 story on
the failure to move the marijuana
issue in the legislative session just
ended, made clear Cuomo’s view
that a new state agency should
decide on the allocation of funds.
Leading legislative advocates insisted
it guarantee fi xed rates of
reinvestment in communities most
affected by the war on drugs.
All the Legislature could agree
on were a new enforcement measure
based on fi nes rather than
criminal charges and the right of
people with possession convictions
to have their records expunged.
But whether with fi nes or criminal
charges, the problem of targeting
people of color remains unresolved.
And concerns on that score were
not alleviated when the city, under
pressure from Cuomo, announced
a new push to fi ne subway riders
for fare evasion for the subways, an
effort that will also fall heaviest on
people of color. Replacing criminal
charges with fi nes aims to satisfy
concern over the criminalization
of poverty, but fi nes will likely still
disproportionately affect young
black and Latinx men.
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