“The dangers of medical marijuana outweigh the benefits,” said Andrew Cuomo in 2010 when he was running for governor against crazy person Carl Paladino. At that time, weed wasn’t surging in popularity like it currently is. Then Cuomo got elected and the following year, he softened his position a bit. “We’re looking at both sides of the issue if you will and we’re reviewing it, but we don’t have a final position,” he said.
Fast forward to 2014 and things have changed dramatically for weed, but not the governor. CNN’s chief medical correspondent and America’s doctor, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, now endorses cannabis as a treatment to a wide array of ailments and several states are on the verge of passing their own medical pot bills, including New York. As the city’s last mayoral race demonstrated, pot is no longer political kryptonite, it’s a campaign issue that many voters support.
Now here we are, on the historic cusp of legalizing medical weed, and in swoops Governor Cuomo at the last minute to say he can’t sign the Compassionate Care Act because it would allow patients to smoke the good herb, despite all the heavy lifting that state senators like Liz Krueger and others did for months. For him, smoked cannabis as medicine seems counterintuitive. Science however, disagrees. There have been numerous studies lauding the benefits of smoked cannabis.
However, with Cuomo facing reelection and his unwillingness to accept the fact that Hillary Clinton is running for president, thereby killing his aspirations for the White House, this type of political sabotage is par for the course. Whether or not a medical weed patient smokes cannabis, vaporizers it or eats it, should be be a decision made between the patient and the doctor, NOT the governor.
(Photo: @MTA)
