Recreational marijuana is now legal in eight states. Most are out west (like Colorado, California, and Nevada) and the closest state with legal weed to NYC is Massachusetts.
But that's set to change: the newly-elected Democratic governor of New Jersey has said that he will sign a legal weed bill if the legislature passes one -- and the legislature seems poised to do it. So we may very well have legal weed right across the Hudson River within the year.
The reasons for legal weed are clear: it's safer and less addictive than legal tobacco and alcohol, it will generate massive amounts of tax revenue which will fund the government without raising other taxes, it will vastly reduce the number of arrests that will decrease the cost and increase the efficiency of our criminal justice system, it will give jobs to weed farmers, it will put dispensaries in business, and young people and minorities will no longer have their lives ruined just because they want to toke and got busted.
Only someone with a dishonest, mean-spirited agenda could oppose legal weed. Besides, how do you outlaw a plant?
Hopefully, if and when it happens in New Jersey, the usually New York State legislature will get its act together and legalize recreational pot ASAP. I can't imagine that New York City and State politicians will want to see all that business and revenue go to New Jersey and not here. A two-thirds majority of New Yorkers want their weed legal -- so let's go ahead and do it!
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