As America’s third-largest economy, New York will be one of the biggest recreational marijuana markets with the power to open the door for many excluded groups, making the state an influential player when it comes to moving the needle forward toward normalizing the use of cannabis.
In accordance, one of the state’s main goals with this new legislation is to end the criminalization of marijuana use that has disproportionately affected minority and poor communities.
The intent of New York’s social equity legislation
According to Crystal D. Peoples-Stokes, the Democratic majority leader in the Assembly who sponsored the bill, the legislation is intentional upon social equity and righting the wrongs that past drug laws have done to communities of color.