NYCLU on Governor Cuomo’s Marijuana Legalization Proposal

NEW YORK – Today, Governor Cuomo announced his plan to legalize marijuana for adult use in New York State in 2021. In response, the New York Civil Liberties Union issued the following statement from senior policy counsel Michael Sisitzky:

“New Yorkers have spoken in the streets and at the polls: they demanded that lawmakers dismantle systemic racism, and that begins with how we legalize marijuana. New York must ensure a diverse and inclusive legal marijuana industry and reinvest in the communities of color that have been devastated by the war on drugs, mass incarceration and a legacy of disproportionate arrests for drug possession. It is time for lawmakers in Albany to step up, stop the harm and start repairing the damage to Black and Brown New Yorkers whose lives have been needlessly destroyed by racist drug policies across our state for far too long.”