STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With the New York state Legislature comfortably under Democratic control, state Sen. Diane Savino said that she’s confident that New York will legalize recreational marijuana.
Savino told the Advance on Wednesday that she believes Gov. Andrew Cuomo will successfully push for recreational marijuana to be legalized through the 2019 state budget.
“I thought it was going to happen regardless. This is not a red or blue issue," Savino told the Advance in a phone interview during a weeklong trip to Nevada. "The state I’m standing in right now, they have a new governor coming in who is a Democrat, but most states did marijuana under Republicans long before Democrats got involved.”
On Nov. 6, Democrats won five seats held by Republican incumbents in the state Senate and won three open races, erasing the GOP’s one-seat majority and giving Democrats control of the legislature for the first time since 2009. But despite their majority, Savino said she suspects that the issue will be bipartisan.
"There were a lot of members in the Republican conference who were interested in marijuana because they see it as an economic development issue, particularly in upstate New York,” she said
SAVINO IN NEVADA
Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn) -- the architect behind New York’s medical marijuana program -- told the Advance that she’s worried that New York’s medical marijuana program could be disrupted by introducing adult-use recreational marijuana.
Savino is currently in Nevada meeting with officials, business owners, and touring facilities to bring back some of the state’s best practices.
Some states like Oregon, Washington and Colorado saw a drop in product sales and dispensaries tied to its medical marijuana program, but Nevada introduced a single-stream model, which allows for recreational and medical marijuana to be distributed in the same location.
“You’ll have professionals who want to advise you and can say ‘why are you here -- do you want to relax, are you interested in the recreational model, do you have a qualifying condition?’" Savino said. "And they can steer to the products that make sense for you and your particular condition.”
“I am very concerned about what bringing adult use [marijuana] will do to the medical program. We now have 31 states that have medical marijuana and nine of them have implemented adult use. Not all of them have done it in a successful way, up-ending the medical program or creating a whole new set of problems," said Savino. "So I wanted to take a look at Nevada, which by everyone’s estimation has done this in the most successful, cohesive way.”
Savino has met with the author of the Nevada referendum that brought adult-use marijuana to the state, the state’s tax and finance commissioner, licensing officials, and law enforcement to go over how Nevada implemented the two programs.
The North Shore lawmaker also said that she’s interested in creating more rigorous testing and also wants to reduce the barriers of entry into the marijuana industry, including for minority and women-owned businesses.
New York’s vertical integration model requires a company to do “everything from seed to sale" and since traditional lending services don’t do business with the marijuana industry, enormous amounts of cash is needed to enter the market.
“Just that high barrier of entry creates a lack of diversity in this industry," said Savino. "What we’re looking at going forward is how do we allow people into the market place at various points of entry.”
You have to be able to have networks of people who you know you can turn to who are willing to invest significant amounts of capital.
New York state passed the Compassionate Care Act in 2014 which brought medical marijuana. Currently, the only conditions that can be treated with medical marijuana in New York are cancer, HIV infection or AIDS, Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, neuropathy, Huntington’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain.
HEADING TOWARD LEGALIZATION
The state rapidly moved towards legalization of recreational marijuana in 2018.
After Cuomo commissioned a study on the potential effects of legalizing marijuana in Jan. 2018, New York state’s Department of Health released a 74-page report in July, which concluded that marijuana should be legalized for recreational use.
The report said that the “positive effects” of legalizing marijuana outweigh some of its “potential negative effects" and estimated that the industry could generate up to $678 million in tax revenue.
On Aug. 2, Cuomo, who called marijuana a “gateway drug” last year, announced the creation of a 20-person workgroup, made up of Cuomo administration officials, law enforcement officials, and professors. State lawmakers who’ve sponsored or created marijuana legislation, including Savino, are also involved in the process.