The People of NY Want Legal Pot
The people of NY are tired of being harassed by the police because they carry around a few ounces of pot. They are tired of a State that doesn’t understand the health benefits marijuana brings to the table. They are tired of a “war on drugs” that has become just another way to cover racism and misinformation. They are tired… very tired.
That’s why hundreds of demonstrators rallied in New York City’s Union Square to call for the legalization of marijuana in New York State. Washington, Alaska, Oregon and Colorado did it, and none of them has a place like New York, a global city where cultures meet and flourish, and where everyone is supposed to be free to express him/herself.
Last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a limited medical marijuana bill into law, and I would underline the word “limited”, an act that turned New York into the 23rd state with an effective medical marijuana law. This said, as highlighter by the Marijuana Policy Project team, “the law falls short in several areas — it leaves out several serious conditions, will not allow patients to smoke cannabis, fails to provide for home cultivation or even emergency access during implementation, and allows very few producers and dispensaries.” Plus, the law doesn’t include out of state patients, and your health insurance will not be required to cover medical marijuana.
And what about smoking pot for recreational purposes? We are still waiting for Cuomo to wake up on that one. How many more arrests and instances of police violence will have to happen before the authorities realize that the war on marijuana is just not working in New York? Surely enough, Seattle and Denver have already demonstrated that a city can legalize pot without being transformed into some kind of post-apocalyptic world governed stoned potheads and criminals. Actually, both cities have registered data that demonstrate legalization doesn’t cause many problems at all. For instance, underage consumption and car accidents have not increased in Seattle and Denver.
The citizens of New York would love to go online and buy quality seeds on a website like http://greenhouseseeds.nl, and then grow their own plant without being afraid of the next crazy police officers who decide to strangle or shoot someone because s/he is smoking a joint in the park. Is this really too much to ask? Not really. What do you think, Mr. Cuomo?
