Policy Marijuana

Marijuana laws across the country vary state to state. Although under federal law it is illegal for any person to manufacture, distribute, or possess cannabis for any purpose,

Twenty-one states and Washington D.C. have made the plant available to qualifying patients for medical purposes. Additionally, Colorado and Washington have made the drug legal for recreational use. It is essential for New York to adopt similar policies to Colorado in regard to marijuana in order to fix ambiguous and discretionary legislation, and to free the burden on enforcement. The drug should be taxed and regulated seed from sale, and be treated in a similar manner to alcohol in order to reallocate police resources to where they are better needed.

Marijuana enforcement varies drastically not only from state to state basis – to the extent that Oklahoma hands out life sentences to those selling even the smallest of quantities whereas New York only imposes a fine for minor possession - policy also fluctuates between singular police departments and individual police officers by their own discretion. The enforcement of current marijuana policy is a burden on the NYPD, taking units away from fighting violent and heinous crimes, and instead allocating them to bust people for possession. Furthermore, current policy contains too many loopholes, which provide officers the opportunity to turn a misdemeanor into a more serious offense.

New York is one of the most lenient states in regards to marijuana policy. Currently, marijuana is decriminalized in New York, and is only punishable by fine. For a first offender, possession of up to 25 grams of marijuana is punishable by a fine of $100. If an additional offense occurs within three years of the first offense, possess...

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...container violation, and driving while impaired from marijuana will be treated as harshly as a DUI conviction.

The proposed amendment would allow New York state to provide licensing for cultivating facilities, testing facilities, and retail stores. Local governments in the state would be able to decide on their own if they want these facilities, and if they chose to have them, how to regulate. Taxation would be similar to that of alcohol or cigarettes, tax would be put at such a rate to undermine the current street price, in order to eliminate the incentive for a black market to be established. A stipulation will be added to redirect funds from the raised revenue back to police departments to make up for the lost revenue from issuing citations for marijuana, in order to maintain current police department sizes so resources can effectively be allocated elsewhere.