Updating some news from last week, NY governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed at an event in Manhattan today that legalization of marijuana would be a priority for the first quarter of 2019. Outlined in today’s speech as a focus issue for the first 100 days of Cuomo’s third term as governor, legalization could bring up to $1.7 billion in annual sales based off an impact study from earlier this year.

Cuomo’s speech notably highlighted the disparity in marijuana-related arrests between whites and minorities. Describing the arrests for cannabis as having “too long targeted the African-American and minority communities.” Cuomo went on to state, “Let’s legalize the adult use of recreational marijuana once and for all.”

The lack of social justice in cannabis has been a priority of California’s “Phase II” licensing period and, in addition to financing, has been an observable barrier to entry in the California cannabis scene. This past summer, MMLG co-sponsored a lecture centered around Phase II, social equity and diversity with Cat Packer of the LA Dept. of Regulations as speaker. With all that in mind, we applaud New York by emphasizing social equity as part of the initiative to legalize.

Moving forward with legalization in early 2019 only makes sense for Cuomo and his staff. With New Jersey pushing to legalize next year and with neighboring states such as Massachusetts and Vermont (to an extent) already there, this was the right move by the Empire State.