Op-Ed: New NY Marijuana Law Lacks Essential Guardrails

New York Assemblyman Kevin Byrne is the ranking Minority member on the Health Committee. He represents District 94, comprised of most of Putnam County and part of northern Westchester County.

Throughout my time in the Assembly, I have consistently embraced opportunities to lift burdensome restrictions on medicinal marihuana, but have also contended it should remain a controlled substance. We know there can be medicinal benefits from cannabis, but its use should be a decision made between a patient and their doctor, nurse practitioner or physician assistant.
Like many in the medical community, including the Medical Society of the State of New York, I have also consistently opposed efforts to legalize marihuana for recreational use and voted against the Marihuana Regulation & Taxation Act (MRTA).

That said, understanding over the last several years that legalization was likely to pass, I made myself available to listen to colleagues and advocates to try and help ensure guard rails were put in place to better protect public health and safety should legalization eventually occur.
Unfortunately, it is my determination that many of the guard rails our state needed to safeguard public health and safety were absent in the MRTA.

Arguments highlighting years of social injustice were largely addressed years ago when the state repealed many of the Rockefeller Drug Laws and more recently with last year's decriminalization bill. As it stands, last year's decriminalization bill, which may have been very well-intentioned, already went too far when it eliminated the additional violations that were previously enforceable against a person who smoked cannabis in public spaces. This problem has now only worsened that cannabis has been fully legalized. Today, under the MRTA a person can smoke marihuana outside anywhere they can smoke tobacco, including some public parks frequented by our youth. Tobacco and cannabis are inherently different and should be regulated as such. I have written to the sponsor of the MRTA advocating again for reforms that would better enable local governments to regulate and restrict cannabis use in public spaces.

While legalization will most assuredly bring in some new tax revenue, we know it will also increase costs that affect our state and local budgets as well as put the health and well-being of our families at greater risk. To me, whatever fiscal benefit may exist from the MRTA is simply not worth the price tag.

View Byrne's remarks to the Assembly here.