The Empire State isn’t doing a complete legalisation of marijuana use like mother states…..
Gov. Cuomo signed legislation Monday decriminalizing marijuana use in the state of New York.
The law reduces unlawful possession of marijuana to a violation punishable by a fine.
Additionally, it also creates a process for individuals convicted of certain marijuana offenses to have their records expunged.
The governor’s office said that New York’s existing marijuana laws disproportionately affects African American and Latino communities, and the legislation addresses the racial and ethnic disparities.
“Communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by laws governing marijuana for far too long, and today we are ending this injustice once and for all,” Cuomo said.
The bill will take effect 30 days after becoming law.
Lawmakers in New York state voted last month to eliminate criminal penalties for public possession and use of marijuana after efforts to legalize pot stalled.
“It’s not legalization,” he said on public radio previously. “But it is decriminalization and it’s a major, major accomplishment.”
The bill emerged as a fallback option when legislation that would have legalized, regulated and taxed marijuana sales fizzled last month….
I’ve been advocating this for forty years.
Glad to see more states moving forward on it.
SC of course will likely be one of the last to do so; however, small possession cases are rarely prosecuted even here anymore..
I remember that Jeff Sessions said that he was going to start enforcing federal marijuana laws when he was AG. A friend of mine is an Assistant US Attorney and one day I asked him about that.He just laughed.
Prosecutors from the local to federal level just don’t care about these minor pot possession cases anymore.
And just so all will know…I’m not now ,nor have ever been a marijuana user,Iwill have a stiff drink every once in awhile though.Actually I place those two vices about on the same level.
I agree with u…..
the small amounts are a waste of time for the local and state courts
I’d say about a 5th of the daily arrest sheets have some sort of Marijuana Possession in them that I read daily. Going to bring the arrest rates down, less OT for the Cops that’s for sure…follow the money, need to cut costs on salaries, less arrests leads to less OT, and money goes up because now you just collect a simple fine for a joint.
The state legislator’s just wouldn’t go for a full recreational ok…
In fact the big push for full has NOIT caught on much across the country….
For those going full I’d say the those states’s are making $$$ off the sales like alcohol…
Cop’s WILL adjust….
Oh that’s coming.
This is just the first step to pacify people well,like you.
It will likely be totally legalized within the next five years or so.
Once something is decriminalized law enforcement agencies rapidly lose interest in enforcing such matters,
On the full legalisation in New York State?
I doubt it….
While Mass did it a few years ago?
The expected rush among the state’s has NOT materialised
Neither has an effort to erase the classification of marijuana aqs federal dangerous drug…
As Bdog pointed out and you would see around ur way?
Cops will use selective enforcement and judges don’t want their case load’s heavy with grass cases…
But there WILL arrests and summons issued still…
Hope dies hard.
Hey Bdog….
Could local towns and cities make their own rules?….
I don’t know anything about New York law but such would depend on whether New York State grants such powers to its political subdivisions.
In some states ( SC for example) local cities and towns cannot adopt ordinances that conflict with state laws or legislate in areas that the state has preempted.
In other word, if the State decriminalized marijuana , a locality could not then make it a criminal act.Conversely, if a state makes certain actions criminal ,a city could not decriminalize it.
All this would likely be addressed in the State Constitution.
Thanks Jack….
It would be like the case with the woman click that wouldn’t issue marriage license’s I guess…
When I was reporting on Berkeley politics in the 1970’s, there were constant wrangles about whether the City’s home-rule Charter meant that she was not pre-empted by state law from allowing or forbidding something.
Jack is absolutely right, of course. States are considered to be sovereign and their cities, counties, towns, municipalities and school districts to be “creatures” [i.e. creations] of the State. As you must well know from observing conflicts between New York City and the State of New York, the State can give her creatures as much or as little home rule or discretion as either the State or the State Constitution allow.
This is why apartment-owners in many states (e.g. Massachusetts and California) proposed constitutional initiatives to forbid cities from establishing rent control. Many of the cities’ voters were tenants favorably inclined to rent control, but their power to establish it could be overridden by statewide electorates that included a much higher proportion of less-friendly home-owners and property-owners in the suburbs and countryside.
Yes….
I agree on the state vs local law…
I’ll Answer your question like this:
If the law to legalize weed had passed, Our County Legislature and Executive were going to Opt out the first year and not allow the sale and use of Marijuana in Nassau, however, that law did not pass and those local exemptions were built into the law.
As far as the decriminalization, weed under 2 ounces is now a violation, the local level governments couldn’t push it higher than that, however, I am sure there are some laws they can make that revolve around weed use that can make it a crime. For example, the social host law is only on the books as far as I know in Nassau and Suffolk, it is not codified in the NYS penal law (obviously this surrounds alcohol use, but I am sure they will expand it to include weed use). Plus, what about weed in schools, that may still be a crime, not sure how it was addressed in the new law.
I will now have a scale in my car to roughly estimate how much we find when we search our Probationers (scale courtesy of one my Probationers who was not suppose to have drug contraband in his bedroom)…
Bdog….
THANK YOU….
I KNEW that there was a way to get around things IN THE LAW….
Jack is right the the State Law predominates…
But in order to get the MAJORITY to approve the law ?
Lawmakers inject EXEMPTIONS….
I said this before…
NYC had GOP Mayors for 20 years….
NYS had a GOP Governor for THREE terms, who beat current Dem NYS Gov Cuomo’s dad….
New York is NOT as liberal as AOC would have u think…
Again…
The new law will have cops lay off the bull shit arrests…
But will NOT stop them from making weed arrests along with stops for OTHER things…
If you were a chemist and could figure out how to make a test to show someone under the influence of Marijuana, now that would be a major law enforcement tool that could make someone a really rich person, DUI’s would go up through the roof.
Yes…
There IS more then one way to skin a cat…..