Will New York be the next state to legalize marijuana? Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s 2018 budget plan calls for a study of the pros and cons.
If legal weed comes to New York City, it would finally achieve legitimacy in a place with a long, mixed record of tolerance and crackdowns. Here’s a quick spin through the cultural history of pot here.
• In the 1930s, as authorities nationwide waged war on “reefer madness,” a doctor at the Manhattan Detention Complex urged treatment, not incarceration, for the city’s marijuana “addicts,” including jazz musicians who “find it necessary to take it before playing.”
• Pot moved out of jazz clubs and marginalized communities and into mainstream (read: white) culture with the help of the Beat authors. Jack Kerouac, according to his first wife, took his first hit from the saxophonist Lester Young at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem in the early 1940s.
• The New York Academy of Medicine’s 1944 La Guardia report, commissioned by the mayor, debunked the myth of the murderous marijuana fiend. Researchers found that a typical smoker “readily engages in conversation with strangers, discussing freely his pleasant reactions to the drug and philosophizing on subjects pertaining to life in a manner which, at times, appears to be out of keeping with his intellectual level.”
• One of the first pro-pot marches took place outside the New York Women’s House of Detention in Greenwich Village in 1965, spearheaded by Allen Ginsberg.
And in the late ’80s the underground “green aid” movement, a forerunner to legal medical marijuana, supplied ganja to AIDS patients to ease the effects of the harsh drugs given to patients at the time.
“There’s no question: New York has played a very important role, historically, as a location for the cannabis phenomenon in the United States,” said Martin A. Lee, the author of “Smoke Signals” and the director of Project CBD, a nonprofit that publicizes research on medical uses of cannabis.
• The city cracked down again in the 1990s under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose aggressive policing tactics, like stop-and-frisk, disproportionately affected blacks and Latinos and made New York the pot arrest capital of America.
• Mayor Bill de Blasio — who toked as an N.Y.U. undergrad — promised to cut back on marijuana arrests, but they have barely budged and racial disparities persist.
“Culturally, New York has been way out ahead of the law when it comes to cannabis,” Mr. Lee said. “But politically, New York is certainly not a pioneer or a profile in courage. Now, it’s more toward the caboose instead of the front of the train.”
Here’s what else is happening:
In the News
• Years of investigation into the corruption allegations against Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey unraveled over a two-week span in January. [New York Times]
• An ex-Albany insider turned star witness in the bribery case against a former senior aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is expected to tell all in court, but many say his word can’t be trusted. [New York Times]
• Forced to leave Puerto Rico, a man who suffers from anxiety and depression found comfort in sharing his possessions with others who had to flee the island post-Hurricane Maria. [New York Times]
• The owner of a vintage clothing store is being forced to move it because of developing high-rises in Long Island City — the second time residential developments pushed her out. [New York Times]
• A church in New Jersey honored four chaplains who gave their life vests to others as their military transport ship was sinking during World War II. [New York Times]
• As Black History Month shines a spotlight on African-American culture, a deeper look reveals that many stories go untold. These photographs begin to tell them. [New York Times]
• A security guard at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum is being charged with trafficking firearms. [New York Times]
• New Jersey lawmakers are debating proposed legislation to ban menthol cigarettes, which would make it the first state to do so. [CBS New York]
• Governor Cuomo signed an executive order that bans state agencies from doing business with companies that “promote or tolerate discrimination.” [New York Daily News]
• A carriage horse that was startled by a toppling umbrella along Central Park crashed into two parked cars, injuring its three passengers. [New York Post]
• Today’s Metropolitan Diary: “Kiss on the Platform”
• For a global look at what’s happening, see Your Morning Briefing.
Coming Up Today
• The once-banned 1973 film “The Spook Who Sat By the Door,” about a black C.I.A.-agent-turned-militant, screens at BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn. 4:30 and 9:30 p.m. [$15]
• The New York Times’s chief dance critic, Alastair Macaulay, talks about the choreographers Frederick Ashton and George Balanchine at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts near Lincoln Center. 6 p.m. [Free, reservation required]
• A blues concert by Valerie June will be held at Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. 6:30 p.m. [Free]
• Sample food and kosher wine from around the world at the Kosher Food and Wine Experience at Chelsea Piers. 6:30 p.m. [$125]
• The author of the book “The Suffragents” discusses the history of the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage at the Greater Astoria Historical Society in Long Island City, Queens. 7 p.m. [Free]
• Islanders host Predators, 7 p.m. (MSG+). Rangers at Stars, 8:30 p.m. (MSG).
• Alternate-side parking remains in effect until Feb. 12.
• For more events, see The New York Times’s Arts & Entertainment guide.
In other marijuana news, here are some of your responses to last month’s request for thoughts on legalization:
For:
“Not only does cannabis have, almost without argument, various medical uses, but the amount of revenue brought in by taxes on cannabis could help pay for things we obviously are having trouble finding money for: maintenance and repair of New York’s fading and failing infrastructure, homelessness issues, affordable housing issues and drug rehabilitation issues.”
— Jamie Legon, 66, Morningside Heights
“Petty arrests for possession of marijuana have disproportionately targeted low-income communities of color for too long. As a step toward making our justice system more fair and modern, let’s rethink how we criminalize drug use.”
— Dylan Lee, 22, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
“Recreational marijuana should definitely be legal in New York. However, we as a society need to have an honest conversation about the pros and cons of using marijuana — there are many. We also need to remove any and all barriers into medical research of the drug by unbiased scientists so that we can improve our understanding of the effects of this substance that so many of us consume.”
— André Salerno, 32, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Against:
“I am against legalization simply because it smells bad and New Yorkers live and commute in tight spaces. In New York City the skunky stink seeps into my apartment and I can smell it walking on the sidewalk or lingering on the clothes of subway riders.”
— Marianne Harmon, 41, Upper West Side
“I am absolutely against America becoming a nation of potheads. We need our critical thinking more than ever now, and marijuana is scientifically documented to slow reaction time and motivation, cause changes in the brain and negatively affect the lungs.”
— Anne Russell, 80, Wrightsville Beach, N.C.
“I do not support the legalization of marijuana for a simple reason that the cost treating people with potential side effects of the drug is enormous.”
— Howard Zhang, 26, West New York, N.J.
Wait, I’m confused:
“Oh, it’s not legal in New York? I walk down the street smelling its pungent aroma just about everywhere in the city. You can get it delivered to your home in an hour. Why on earth don’t we legalize it? Everyone would be way happier and more chill.”
credit:nytimes.com