When it comes to medical marijuana in New York, advocates seem to have all their ducks in a row.
The New York Assembly has passed the Compassionate Care Act, which would legalize medical marijuana, four times. There are now more than enough votes for it to pass in the state Senate. A recent poll found that a supermajority of New Yorkers -- nearly 90 percent -- support legalized medical marijuana in the state. And in March, the Assembly voted to include the medical marijuana bill in its budget package.
Yet when Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) and Senate co-leaders Dean Skelos (R) and Jeff Klein (D) announced on Sunday that they had reached a budget agreement, nowhere in said budget was there any mention of the Compassionate Care Act. The state Senate still hasn't brought the bill to a floor for a vote.
So, what's the holdup?
Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, who sponsored the Compassionate Care Act in the Assembly, points the finger at Cuomo. The governor, he says, hasn't even been willing to "discuss" the bill, despite having previously indicated that if it passed both the Assembly and Senate, he would sign it.
"Part of the problem with the governor's position," Gottfried said, "is that Senate Republicans have made it clear that one of their main objections to passing the bill is that they don't want to go out on a limb and find out they don't have the governor on board."
Cuomo has seemingly made no effort to promote the bill in Albany. Instead, in January, the governor announced an executive order that would make medical pot available at 20 state hospitals for patients suffering from a specific set of illnesses.
The announcement came as a disappointment to many advocates. Cuomo's plan depends on the federal government signing off on it, and medical marijuana advocates have serious doubts that the government will do so. State Sen. Diane Savino (D), an outspoken supporter of medical marijuana and the Senate sponsor of the Compassionate Care Act, called the governor's proposal "unworkable."
Bloomberg reports that during a March 29 conference call with the press, Cuomo said that "there hasn't been any serious discussion of any alternatives" to his medical marijuana plan.
On Monday, however, Republican State Senator George Maziarz, who supports the bill, told Bloomberg that there could be forward motion on the Compassionate Care Act very soon.
"There's going to be some negotiating," Maziarz said. "A deal will be brokered between the governor's program and the Compassionate Care Act."
Gottfried said that it would be easy for Cuomo to apply a little pressure, "bring people to the table," and pass the Compassionate Care Act.
In the meantime, he said, "there are tens of thousands of New Yorkers with serious and debilitating and life-threatening conditions whose lives could be improved and in some cases, lengthened, if we allowed use of medical marijuana under a physician's care."
The fact that marijuana has not yet been recognized for medical use, he said, is a case of politics "run amok."
It doesn't make any sense that the Compassionate Care Act remains stalled in the state legislature, says Gabriel Sayegh, director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "This bill is a no-brainer," he said. "This is not a controversial issue."
"It's the mystery and tragedy of Albany," he added, pointing to the "Byzantine" network of political back channels that a bill in New York has to navigate.
Missy Miller, whose son Oliver suffers from potentially fatal seizures that could be alleviated by medical marijuana, expressed her outrage at what she sees as Albany's failure.
“Frankly, I'm disgusted that they are playing politics in Albany, while my son's life hangs in the balance," she said in a statement. "This is medication that could help him and thousands of others. Every day the Senate fails to act is [a] day that puts my son's life in jeopardy. They must pass this bill, and they must do it immediately.”
Twenty states across the country, as well as the District of Columbia, have medical marijuana programs.
Assemblyman Gottfried says that in order to keep the Compassionate Care Act alive, the Assembly will bring it to a vote again in coming weeks. If it passes, it will again be up to the state Senate leaders to bring the bill to the floor.
Governor Cuomo's office didn't respond to a Huffington Post request for comment.
“I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be," he said back in 2000 in an interview with Rolling Stone. "We really need a re-examination of our entire policy on imprisonment.”
He's since spoken about the issue of marijuana and drug prohibition a number of times. Last year, he appeared in the documentary, "Breaking the Taboo," where he argued that the war on drugs has been a failure.
“I don't want to promote that but I also don't want to put people in jail who make a mistake," Paul said. "There are a lot of young people who do this and then later on in their twenties they grow up and get married and they quit doing things like this. I don't want to put them in jail and ruin their lives."
"I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol," Robertson said in an interview with The New York Times in 2012. "I've never used marijuana and I don't intend to, but it's just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn't succeeded."
Robertson has made similar remarks on his "700 Club" show before, but the Times, like many others, perhaps felt they must have misheard him.
“[T]o me, marijuana is no different than wine," he said in an interview with High Times. "It's a drug of choice. It's meant to alter your current state -- and that's not a bad thing. It's ridiculous that marijuana is still illegal. We're still fighting for it ... It comes down to individual decision-making. There are millions of people who smoke pot on a social basis and don't become criminals. So stop with that argument -- it doesn't work.”
[H/T Marijuana Majority]
From his campaign platform:
"By managing marijuana like alcohol and tobacco - regulating, taxing and enforcing its lawful use - America will be better off. The billions saved on marijuana interdiction, along with the billions captured as legal revenue, can be redirected against the individuals committing real crimes against society."
“Marijuana should not only be legal, I think it should be a cottage industry," he said in an interview with High Times. "My wife says, and I agree with her, that what would be really great for Maine would be to legalize dope completely and set up dope stores the way that there are state-run liquor stores.”
[H/T Marijuana Majority]
While marijuana has been made legal for various uses in a number of states, the Obama administration continues to enforce federal laws across the nation. This has led to numerous raids of marijuana-based businesses, as well as prosecutions of growers and other people involved in pot.
"I think it's about time we legalize marijuana," he said. "We have to make a choice in this country. We either put people who are smoking marijuana behind bars or we legalize it, but this little game we're playing in the middle is not helping us, it is not helping Mexico and it is causing massive violence on our southern border."
"Decriminalization does not result in increased drug use. Portugal's 10 year experiment shows clearly that enough is enough. It is time to end the war on drugs worldwide. We must stop criminalising drug users. Health and treatment should be offered to drug users - not prison. Bad drugs policies affect literally hundreds of thousands of individuals and communities across the world. We need to provide medical help to those that have problematic use - not criminal retribution."
"I don't tend to say this publicly, but we can see it's a curative thing. The narcotics industry is also enormous. It funds terrorism and - this is a huge problem in America - fuels the foreign gangs," he said. "More than 85 percent of men incarcerated in America are on drug-related offences. It costs $40,000 a year for every prisoner. If they were really serious about the economy there would be a sensible discussion about legalization."
While Obama and his administration have responded to state marijuana reforms by saying they must enforce federal laws against marijuana, the president has the power to reschedule the drug, which would allow federal authorities to shift resources away from a prohibitive approach.
"However, I think we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts," Palin said. "If somebody's gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems we have in society." While Obama has spoken repeatedly about not being interested in prosecuting small-time marijuana users, he hasn't done anything to prevent them from being busted by law enforcement in states where the drug is still illegal.
In 2012, the former president said he was fine with state legalization efforts, though he himself doesn't necessary support legalizing the drug.
“As president 35 years ago I called for decriminalizing -- but not legalizing -- the possession of marijuana,” Carter said. “Since then, U.S. drug policies have been very horrible to our own country because of an explosion in prison populations.”
"I don't have a problem with states experimenting with this sort of thing I think that's the role of states," Cuccinelli said, according to Ryan Nobles of WWBT.
“The proof will be in the policy. The war on drugs has gotten a really bad rap, when you ask people if they support the war on drugs they say no ... [Obama's] budget once again has the same old drug warrior policy ... I reject the assumption that everybody who is using drugs needs treatment or is an addict and needs to get arrested ... Not all drug use is abuse.”
He's kept up the fight for drug policy reform since.
[H/T Marijuana Majority]
“We've been fighting the war on drugs since the '60s. And guess what? Trillions of dollars later, we are losing," Sharpton said during a segment on MSNBC. "When you look at the disparities in sentencing drug offenders, hasn't this kind of injustice undermined the legitimacy of our criminal justice system?”
[H/T Marijuana Majority]
Tancredo continued, “The arguments against marijuana today are the same as the arguments against liquor years ago.”
Years later, the former congressman agreed to smoke pot on camera with a documentary filmmaker, a deal that he later backed out of.
