CARMEL – Putnam County lawmakers have called on the state legislature and Governor Andrew Cuomo to approach marijuana legalization with extreme caution due to the adverse health impacts resulting from making it legal.
All the local lawmakers oppose it.
At its year-end meeting Wednesday evening, the nine-member county legislature noted that “legalization will likely result in significant costs to society resulting from workplace losses, vehicle mishaps, homelessness, administrative enforcement and other ancillary issues.”
Legislator Barbara Scuccimarra told her colleagues, “What kind of message is this sending to young people? We think vaping is bad! Wait until this happens.”
Chairman Joseph Castellano agreed. “The legalization of recreational pot will place new responsibilities and service requirements on many county departments including public health, mental health, substance abuse, consumer protection, economic development and more.” He said legalization will also have “enormous impacts on local and community based non-for-profits who are engaged in treatment, educational and prevention programs.”
Legislator Neal Sullivan added that police officers will have to be retrained at additional cost to local municipalities: “New York State must provide the necessary reimbursements to counties to cover the new costs incurred for law enforcement and other county services while providing general revenue sharing to counties similar to the methodology used under the current medical marijuana program.”
Person-to-person, the lawmakers said they were opposed to recreational marijuana legalization but if legalized, safeguards, research and additional funding for local governments must be included.
The governor intends to work with state legislators to legalize pot within the first few months of 2019.
