City Comptroller John Liu unveiled a plan yesterday to decriminalize marijuana in a way he said would benefit all New Yorkers, and potentially the whole nation if others follow suit!
At a news conference, the mayoral candidate proposed decriminalizing and taxing marijuana in the state and using the revenue for higher education.
Liu, who maintained that he never smoked pot, said not only is the city wasting money and time prosecuting people for marijuana use, but the Big Apple is losing out on revenue.
“It’s time to realize the prohibition of marijuana has failed.” Liu said.
Liu’s study said busting people for smoking pot has ed to unfair racial imbalance. Although Blacks and Hispanics represent 47% of the pot smokers in the city in 2012, they make up 86.2% of the marijuana arrests.
Whites, by comparison, represent 42.3% of the marijuana users and 11.2% of the pot arrests, according to Liu.
“Our policies in New York are broken” said Gabriel Sayegh, the state director for nonprofit group the Drug Policy Alliance.
Liu estimated that the state could rake in $400 million annually if it permits NYers 21 and over to legally possess up to an ounce of marijuana.
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