Global Ganja Report

Suddenly, New York state's political establishment is looking seriously at cannabis legalization, driven by growing concerns over long-entrenched racial discrimination in enforcement of the marijuana laws. But there is a growing realization that legalization alone will not be enough to correct this legacy unless it is implemented in way explicitly designed to do so.

New York City's Cannabis Parade, flagship entry in the Global Marijuana March movement and a counterculture event dating back to the early 1970s, this year actually drew mainstream politicians and candidates. Nearly all struck themes of racial justice, emphasizing that a push for legalization in the Empire State must also address the social iniquities of cannabis prohibition and the "war on drugs."

With a bombshell homespun video statement, New York's gadfly celebrity gubernatorial hopeful Cynthia Nixon has—for the moment, at least—placed the cannabis legalization question front and center in the race. Incumbent Andrew Cuomo, feeling the pressure from Nixon's challenge, is already starting to waver from his once intransigent stance against legalization.

Seniors are the fastest growing group of medicinal cannabis users in the country, and a growing number of nursing homes from coast to coast are tolerating use of tinctures and extracts to combat dementia, insomnia and related ailments. Patient testimony is now backed up by research, with scientists identifying the mechanism by which cannabinoids slow the deterioration of neurons in the brain. But federal strictures continue to pose an obstacle to investigation—leaving medicinal users in the cold under US law.

Despite repeated pledges by the New York Police Department and Mayor Bill de Blasio to lift the police pressure on cannabis, and especially to address the long-standing racial disparity in pot busts, all too little seems to be changing in Gotham. In a sometimes heated session, New York's City Council held hearings Feb. 26 to discuss new stats showing that despite a significant drop in cannabis arrests, the overwhelming majority of those busted remain Black and Latino.

New York City, despite its liberal reputation, has long been the marijuana arrest capital of the USA. So many herbal advocates were heartened by the recent poll (carried out by Emerson College on behalf of the Marijuana Policy Project and Drug Policy Alliance) finding that 62% of New York's registered voters support legalizing and taxing cannabis to help close the state's budget gap, with 28% opposed. But some activists are quick to remind us that even as the public comes around on the question, all too little has changed on the city's streets.

The networking group CannaGather held its fifth confab at lower Manhattan's Galvanize venue Sept. 28, bringing together some 200 entrepreneurs, investors, press and activists from throughout the New York metropolitan area. Inspired by the New York tech industry meet-ups of the dot-com boom in the late '90s, CannaGather hopes to similarly connect people in a burgeoning industry and help spur its growth.

Civil rights organizations in New York are trying to determine if police and school officials on Long Island helped federal authorities detain students in the country illegally on the basis of dubious claims of ties to Central American gangs. The controversy comes days after President Trump's inflammatory speech before law enforcement officers in Long Island's Suffolk County on July 28. There was a major outcry over Trump's urging of police to be "rough" with suspects in the speech. This outrage nearly eclipsed media coverage of his pledge in the speech to "destroy" the MS-13 gang network, calling its members "animals."