Cuomo’s pot announcement sparks debate in East Meadow, Nassau County

Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said she does not see many communities expressing their support for the recreational use of marijuana, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Dec. 17 he would seek to legalize and tax this year. “I might be wrong,” Curran, a Democrat, said. “It would be interesting to see who might embrace this.”

“I think [recreational legalization] is going to bring on a whole host of problems, which I’m not sure that the governor or his agencies are prepared to deal with,” said Legislator Thomas McKevitt, an East Meadow Republican.

One of McKevitt’s main worries, he said, is that legalization would lead to a spike in the number of traffic accidents involving those driving while under the influence of marijuana. “There is no clear test or no clear standards to delineate what makes a person incapable of driving [while high],” he said.

Skeptics and opponents of Cuomo’s plan have pointed to an increase in accidents and fatalities in Denver since 2013, the year after pot became legal in Colorado.

According to the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a collaboration of drug enforcement agencies, the percentage of fatal crashes in which drivers had marijuana in their systems jumped from 10 percent in 2009 to 19.26 percent in 2014, and one in four drivers tested after traffic deaths tested positive for marijuana.

According to the Denver Police Department, the number of cases of people driving under the influence of weed jumped from 33 in 2013 to 66 the following year. Curran said that this was one of the reasons why she would fight to ensure that tax revenue from legal marijuana sales would go to the Nassau County Police Department to help ensure that roads are safe.

In addition to public-safety concerns, McKevitt said that a potential spike in car insurance rates could hamper whatever revenue marijuana brings to the state. “You may not see it directly,” he said. “But there will be costs that will have to be covered.”

Curran said that such risks must be taken into consideration. “I want to make sure the county gets its fair share of revenue to be able to cope with any issues arising from this,” she said.

Detective Vincent Garcia, an NCPD spokesman, said the department shares similar concerns. A comment from Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder was not provided by deadline.

State Sen. Todd Kaminsky, a Long Beach Democrat, said he was organizing a roundtable discussion, called “Safe Roads in the Age of Legalization,” on Jan. 7 at 11 a.m. at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, at which he hoped to hear whether a roadside test to check drivers for marijuana is close to being a reality. (Currently there is no such test.)

Zoning dispensaries

North Hempstead’s town board has passed laws prohibiting marijuana dispensaries within 1,000 feet of schools and 500 feet of residential areas, but the Town of Hempstead has not taken up a similar measure, and has had little discussion on the matter, Councilwoman Erin King Sweeney said. “We’re behind the eight ball,” said King Sweeney, a Republican from Wantagh. “We simply need to do more research and get up to speed on the issue.”

Curran said that aside from North Hempstead, she had not heard much discussion about where dispensaries would be zoned. The North Hempstead board also capped the number of dispensaries allowed in its jurisdiction to two. King Sweeney said she has asked her staff to look into how the Hempstead Town Board might draw zoning boundaries for such sites.

Town Supervisor Laura Gillen, a Rockville Centre Democrat, said that keeping dispensaries as far away as possible from schools, day care centers and places of worship would be a paramount concern for her. “We don’t want to facilitate the introduction of marijuana to young children and schoolchildren,” she said.

Health issues

Officials from South Nassau Communities Hospital said in September that while marijuana is not a deadly drug, there are certain health concerns. Dr. Adhi Sharma, SNCH’s chief medical officer, said that there is a 1-in-10 chance that an adult will become addicted to marijuana.

But Sharma dismissed the notion that marijuana is a gateway drug, saying that in states where medical marijuana use has been legalized, there has been a 14 percent reduction in the prescription of opioids for pain relief, resulting in 3.9 million fewer opioid pills being taken per day. He also said that in the Netherlands, where recreational marijuana use has been legal for 40 years, there is no statistical evidence that adolescents who use it moved on to other drugs.

The American Psychological Association, however, has said that continued marijuana use has led to poor school performance and higher dropout rates among teenagers. Curran said she would like to see more research on marijuana’s impact on developing brains.

Outgoing State Sen. Kemp Hannon, a Garden City Republican and the chairman of the Senate’s Health Committee, is an avid supporter of medicinal marijuana, but has said he is skeptical about legalizing it for recreational use. One of his fears, Hannon said, is that it could harm the medical marijuana industry by allowing potential patients to self-medicate, as opposed to going to a doctor.

But Sen.-elect Kevin Thomas, a Levittown Democrat who unseated Hannon in November, has a different view. Thomas is a proponent of recreational legalization, which he says would curb the opioid epidemic by giving residents a much less harmful alternative to opioids.

Criminal justice

The NCPD’s arrests for marijuana possession have increased steadily in recent years (see box). Some officials, including Thomas, have called for prior arrests and convictions to be expunged from people’s records. Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas did not return a call requesting comment on whether she would take such action.

Curran said she would not support such a move. “I think you have to follow the law as it was written at the time,” she said. Kaminsky, a former federal prosecutor who has tried drug dealers, said that as far as he was concerned, it would depend on the crime. “Are we talking about major traffickers, or somebody who had a small amount in a park?” he said.

Kaminsky said he believed that a bill legalizing recreational marijuana would pass in April, when the state budget is approved, but added that he would like to see the implementation of the law delayed, perhaps until 2020.