From: Gothamist
A new poll shows that New Yorkers overwhelmingly support the legalization of medical marijuana and also strongly believe that small amounts of the plant should be legal to possess for personal use.
According to the Quinnipiac poll, voters favor legalization of marijuana for medical use 88% to 9%, and personal use 57% to 39%.
State Senator Liz Krueger has proposed a plan to legalize and tax marijuana for recreational use, one that would raise hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, but makes far too much sense to actually pass.
The poll also shows that Governor Cuomo's nakedly political and largely symbolic approach to marijuana policy is dividing voters—41% approve of how he's handling it, while 31% disapprove, and 28% don't know enough to take a position.
Cuomo's medical marijuana initiative would allow 20 hospitals to prescribe marijuana to “patients who are involved in a life-threatening or sense-threatening situation," a bar that will be further fleshed out by the state's Health Department after it holds public hearings on the matter. It's also unclear where the marijuana will come from, and how the program will be sustained in the long run to provide adequate benefits to patients.
What is clear is that New York State remains the marijuana arrest capital of America, and that the plan to decriminalize small amounts of cannabis—a plan Cuomo initially supported before backing down—would have nullified 39,257 of the 40,661 marijuana arrests made in 2012. Around 85% of those arrested for the plant are black or Latino.
Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson, who was sworn in a week ago, has vowed to stop prosecuting cases of small marijuana possession "as soon as possible."
Meanwhile, the federal government has informed banks that they won't immediately face prosecution (maybe!) if they choose to do business with the legal cannabis economies on the west coast, so long as the purveyors keep their product, and its proceeds, out of the hands of minors and illicit drug dealers.
The banks will merely have to file one "suspicious activity report" for each marijuana business it associates with, and then three reports each subsequent year. Also, selling marijuana and being an accessory to such sales is still a violation of federal law. Now who wants to let these guys deposit their duffel bags of cash?
