New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) included provisions to allow police to use the odor of cannabis as evidence that a person is driving while impaired in her executive budget, Spectrum News reports. The plan is facing pushback from one of the state’s top lawmakers, Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes (D), who authored the state’s adult-use bill and called the governor’s proposal “unnecessary.”
Office of Cannabis Management acting and deputy Executive Director Felicia A.B. Reid told Spectrum News that Hochul’s plan “undermines the basic tenets” of the adult-use law and decriminalization more broadly.
Kaelan Castetter, a policy advisor with the Empire Cannabis Manufacturers Alliance, argued that, if approved, the plan “essentially criminalizes working for the cannabis industry.”
“In particular, working in cultivation or processing facilities, it’s inevitable you will leave, or an employee will leave their shift smelling like cannabis even if they de-gown and change into other clothes. Cannabis is very pungent.” — Castetter to Spectrum News
Kassie White, a spokesperson for Hochul, told Spectrum News the “administration is actively negotiating with the state Legislature to keep New Yorkers safe from drugged driving, while maintaining the equity goals” outlined in the adult-use law.
The outlawing of cannabis odor as an impetuous for vehicle searches was a sticking point between lawmakers and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who signed the adult-use bill into law, but the reforms were included in the final version and enacted into law.
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