How the Nation's Most Dysfunctional State Government Blocked Medical Marijuana (And Campaign Finance

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http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-ny-blocked-medical-marijuana

How the Nation's Most Dysfunctional State Government Blocked Medical Marijuana (And Campaign Finance Reform)

Earlier this year, New York looked poised to become the 19th state to legalize medical marijuana. The state Assembly passed a bill by a 99-41 margin June 3. A Quinnipiac poll taken that week indicated that 70 percent of New Yorkers supported the idea. And in the state Senate, the Republicans who had blocked medical-marijuana measures the three times they’d passed the Assembly now retained power only by allying with five renegade Democrats—one of whom, Diane Savino of Staten Island, was the bill’s sponsor. Savino repeatedly said she believed she had enough votes to pass the bill, and would bring it to the floor when the right time came.

That time didn’t come. When the state Senate adjourned early in the morning of June 22, the bill had never reached the floor, despite the renegade Democrat faction’s leader, Jeffrey Klein, cosponsoring a more restrictive revised version. Another measure, to reduce the penalty for marijuana possession “in public view” from a misdemeanor to a $100 fine, also died without a vote in the Senate.

Activists and legislators say they don’t know exactly what happened. "The only thing we can conclude,” says Drug Policy Alliance state director Gabriel Sayegh, is that Klein couldn’t reach an agreement with Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos to allow a vote, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo did nothing to help.

Medical-marijuana legislation hasn’t gotten a vote in the Senate any time since it was first introduced in 1997, says Julie Netherland of New Yorkers for Compassionate Care, and “this year wasn’t any different.” One legislative staffer called it a combination of “Republican recalcitrance” and that “the governor didn’t indicate he was superenthusiastic about it.” Skelos told patients who visited his Long Island district office that Cuomo didn’t want it, says Douglas Greene, legislative director for Empire State NORML.