NY State Limited Medical Marijuana Bill Gets Okay From Cuomo

[RainDog]

A bill brought by two democrats, Senator Diane Savino (Staten Island) and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (Manhattan), received a "go-ahead" by Gov. Cuomo, after only two decades of such attempts.

The bill, which still requires a vote by the state Legislature, will permit only doctors to prescribe marijuana in forms including oil-based and vapor to individuals with conditions including cancer, AIDS, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.

But it won't legalize smokable forms of the drug, making it much narrower in scope than many other medical-marijuana legalization laws around the country. And it will allow the governor, upon recommendation by the state police superintendent or the state health commissioner, to suspend the program at any time.

While the bill's sponsors and patient advocates had pushed to permit smokable pot, Mr. Cuomo in recent days expressed concern about curbing what he described as marijuana's potential to become a "gateway" drug, a worry that was shared by some Republicans—including Senate Majority Coalition Co-leader Dean Skelos—whose votes were critical to the legislation's success.

The marijuana bill marks the rare occasion in which a piece of high-profile legislation will make its way to the governor's desk without a lengthy record of his fingerprints. While Mr. Cuomo exerted significant influence over the final product, the administration didn't become involved in shaping the bill until very late in the process, instead advocating for the governor's pilot program to introduce medical marijuana trials in a handful of state hospitals.

NY State will be the only state, other than Minnesota, that prohibits smoked marijuana for medical use, among those who currently have medical marijuana laws. This regressive stance was at the insistence of Gov. Cuomo.

This legislation went forward in spite of Cuomo's attempt to introduce an even more limited medical marijuana measure based upon a 1980s provision for research at hospitals. In May, the bill was introduced in the New York State Assembly. The only Democrat to vote against the bill was Sen. Simcha Felder, a Democrat who caucuses with the GOP (aka a DINO).

While Gov. Cuomo's concerns about marijuana becoming a gateway drug are quaint, they're unfounded and considered the equivalent of junk within the scientific community.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/marijuana-is-gateway-drug-theory-debunked-again

For decades, prohibitionists have claimed that marijuana is a “gateway drug” that inevitably leads to use of harder substances like heroin and cocaine — despite the fact that every objective study ever done on the gateway theory has determined that it’s absolute crap.

Last week, researchers at the University of New Hampshire released yet another study discrediting the gateway theory. Their findings, based on survey data from more than 1,200 students in Florida public schools, showed that a person’s likelihood to use harder drugs has more to do with social and environmental factors than whether or not they’ve ever tried marijuana.

The era in which someone lives also determines whether people use a variety of illicit drugs. When Nixon and Reagan were in office, the use of other drugs soared. When Clinton was in office, the use of MDMA was the other predominant substance. Wall Street long had cocaine delivered to offices with nary a whimper, but even this group is moving on to adderall, which they can easily obtain with a doctor's prescription without so much as a blink of the eye by the powers that be. But they're captains of industry and wolves and all that other garbage moneyfakers say about themselves.

New Hampshire study: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/uonh-rom083110.php

Whether teenagers who smoked pot will use other illicit drugs as young adults has more to do with life factors such as employment status and stress, according to the new research. In fact, the strongest predictor of whether someone will use other illicit drugs is their race/ethnicity, not whether they ever used marijuana.

The researchers found that the strongest predictor of other illicit drug use appears to be race-ethnicity, not prior use of marijuana. Non-Hispanic whites show the greatest odds of other illicit substance use, followed by Hispanics, and then by African Americans.

Congrats to New York for overcoming the latent reefer madness of Gov. Cuomo. You would think, when considering a life-threatening issue, the Governor would take some time to learn if he were merely repeating the lies of drug warriors or talking about actual potential harm.

Thankfully, the law passed this round in spite of his reliance on outdated thinking that could've come from the mouth of Richard Nixon.

But it's easier to blame an herb, I suppose, than economic structures, as the reason for people turning to drugs. That would require even more actual fact to demonstrate that trickle-down theory is also junk (economic) science. Wouldn't want to upset the big money folks, tho.

The bill is now pending in the legislature.

[Politicalboi]

1. What an asshole Cuomo is

He knows nothing about MJ. So buying an expensive vaporizer, or expensive liquid is the answer.

This IS bullshit too : "In fact, the strongest predictor of whether someone will use other illicit drugs is their race/ethnicity, not whether they ever used marijuana."

No, it's the fact that's it's illegal. When you go to your connections house, they "may" have other drugs to buy. That's how it happens. Not race. It's all our governments fault for keeping MJ illegal.

[RainDog]

2. I agree

But within the context of our culture, which, both governmentally and culturally puts marijuana in the same class as harmful drugs such as heroin and meth, white Americans are most likely to use other drugs.

Heroin is a problem in white suburbia now.

The reason isn't because marijuana is illegal or a gateway. The reason is that white suburban teens were using oxycontin, a legal drug, that became the focus of the DEA in the recent past. Because the DEA has made Oxycontin more difficult to obtain, whether legally or illegally, white kids are using much cheaper heroin instead.

[RainDog]

3. Live stream of NY State Senate Hearing

http://www.ibtimes.com/medical-marijuana-new-york-vote-live-stream-state-nears-legalization-no-lighting-1607324