New York reaches deal to legalise recreational marijuana

NEW YORK: New York State officials finalised a deal on Thursday to legalise recreational marijuana in the state, paving the way for a potential $4.2 billion industry that could create tens of thousands of jobs and become one of the largest markets in the country.

Following several failed attempts, lawmakers in Albany struck an agreement with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to legalize cannabis for adults 21 and older, a move that officials hope will help end years of racially disproportionate policing that saw Black and Hispanic people arrested on low-level marijuana charges far more frequently than white people.

The deal would allow delivery of the drug and permit club-like lounges or “consumption sites” where marijuana, but not alcohol, could be consumed, according to details obtained by The New York Times. It would also allow a person to cultivate up to six marijuana plants at home, indoors or outdoors, for personal use.

If approved, the first sales of legal marijuana are likely more than a year away: Officials must first face the daunting task of writing the complex rules that will control a highly regulated market, from the regulation of wholesalers and dispensaries, to the allocation of cultivating and retail licenses, to the creation of new taxes and a five-member control board that would oversee the industry.

The deal was crafted with an intense focus on making amends in communities impacted by the decades-long war on drugs. Millions of dollars in tax revenue from cannabis sales would be reinvested in minority communities each year, and a sizable portion of business licenses would be reserved for minority business owners.

“A percentage of revenue that is raised will get invested into the communities where the people who suffered mass incarceration come from and still live in many cases,” said Assemblywoman Crystal D. Peoples-Stokes, a Democrat who has spearheaded the legalization effort in the lower chamber for years. “For me this is a lot more than about raising revenue: It’s about investing in the lives of the people that have been damaged.”

The governor’s office had previously estimated that legalizing marijuana could generate about $350 million in yearly tax revenue once the program was fully implemented, which could take years. With New York following the lead of more than a dozen states in legalizing recreational marijuana, Democratic lawmakers sought to fashion their proposal on the best practices from other states, hoping to make New York’s program a national model.

The final language of the legislation was still being reviewed on Thursday, but a bill could pass the Democratic-controlled State Legislature as soon as next week, according to three people familiar with the negotiations.

“When this bill is finally voted on and signed, New York will be able to say we have finally undone damaging criminal justice laws that accomplished nothing but ruining people’s lives,” said State Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat who led the negotiations in the upper chamber. “We will finally be able to say we’re going to have an industry for cannabis that assures people who buy the product that they are buying a legitimate product from legitimate companies.”

The yearslong push to legalize recreational marijuana in New York, a proposal that often found its momentum stalled by some political trip wire, received an unexpected boost from Mr. Cuomo’s recent political scandals.

Democrats began the year cautiously optimistic they would reach an agreement. New Jersey had recently legalized the drug, putting pressure on New York to follow suit, and the state was in dire need of new tax revenue after the pandemic decimated state coffers.

For Democratic lawmakers, it was a matter of bridging the differences between their marijuana bill and the governor’s proposal, which he unveiled earlier this year. But the negotiations were thrown into question when multiple women began accusing Mr Cuomo of sexual harassment in late February. The accusations, along with scrutiny over his handling of nursing homes during the pandemic, engulfed his administration in scandal and left his political future in the balance.

It turned out, however, that striking a deal to legalize cannabis became a higher priority for Mr Cuomo, as several lawmakers and lobbyists surmised that the governor may have wanted to shift attention away from his compounding crises. Marijuana legalization was both a headline-grabbing issue and a policy measure popular with voters.