Failure of NY Legalization 2019 Part 2

As mentioned in my previous post, things are started to look good for NY legalizing cannabis in 2019. The CRTA, as proposed in the budget, did have positive qualities. It included several employment and hiring protections, as cannabis was not to be considered an illicit substance inside NY state. However, the CRTA did not contain home growing provisions or any social justice ones.

The CRTA faced criticism from NORML and other groups due to these issues. With the budget vote deadline coming close, the CRTA was ultimately dropped from the budget. All did not seem to be lost, however, as the MRTA was still pending in the Senate.

However, Cuomo really didn’t seem to want to support it. After the budget talks failed, Cuomo was very absent in legalization talks and barely mentioned it in press briefings.

I personally sent many emails, made phone calls, and even mailed physical letters to my state representatives showing my support. Some answered while others didn’t, but I still did as much as I could to let my representatives know my position.

In the final weeks of the legislative session, support in the Senate waned even with the Democrat majority. The lack of support came from Long Island senators.

While Illinois was able to pass a legalization measure through, NY failed. In-fighting, politics, and arguing where the tax revenues were to go were listed as the reasons for the failure. Disappointment was abound, even though the Senate majority leader stated she will continue her support for the MRTA.

With the FY2020 session starting soon, I will most certainly be watching this measure. With any luck, backroom negotiations would have occurred in the off months and we might be able to get support. If not, we can only hope to vote out those in opposition next November.

Michigan Day 1 Recreational Sales

Being in NY, December 1st felt a lot like this:

Not surprising, there were incredibly long lines forming around the small number of recreational shops which were all located with Ann Arbor. Prohibitionists like to cheer on communities who ban recreational sales, as I have mentioned in my previous post, but banning the stores will just result in the traditional “black” market to continue in force.

Someone on Facebook shared an image(I tried to find the original source but couldn’t) showing the price list from one of the operating dispensaries:

Two things jump out; one being the limit on flower purchases and the other being the incredibly high prices(before taxes). The limit on flower purchases make sense for day 1. There is a limited supply and as we have seen in other states, hundreds of people show up looking to buy legal cannabis.

The prices, however, are just insulting. $70 for an 1/8th is almost double what the going rate is now on the street. With this being my first time monitoring a day 1 release in such a manner, I’m not sure how this has compared to other states on day 1.

I am really hoping this is simple supply/demand and that the prices will eventually come down to a more reasonable level. Price fluctuations are bound to happen in any commodity market especially one as new and erratic as cannabis.

Prohibitionists that are Democrats

Going into starting my twitter account, I had assumed that the majority of prohibitionists would be Republican. To my surprise, the many who I have interacted with on the prohibitionist side were Democrats.

Kevin Sabet, the leader of the Prohibitionist group “Smart Approaches to Marijuana” served under President Obama. SAM was founded with Sabet and Congressman Patrick Kennedy, who is also a Democrat. Other prohibitionists on twitter publicly acknowledge they are Democrats.

What makes this more interesting is that the vast majority of the 2020 Democrat presidential nominees current support either full legalization or at least Federal descheduling and allowing the states to decide.

As I stated on Twitter, Democrats that are against cannabis legalization are going to be likened to Democrats that were against civil rights in the 1960s.