NY MMJ Law or Laws Are Like Sausage Making

This Salon interview with Evan Nison of the New York Cannabis Alliance about the process of finally passing a law permitting the use of medical marijuana in New York state reminded me of that old saying about laws and sausage

Here’s an excerpt to support that conclusion :

In terms of the negotiation and lobbying process, who in Albany did you work with, primarily — was it the Senate or the governor’s office or both?

 Almost the entire time — the five-plus years I was working on the bill — was focused on the Senate. That’s because, for the majority of the time, it was run by the Republicans and then eventually the “independent” Democrats. The assembly was great throughout the whole process and passed the bill multiple times just this past year. The governor’s office was fairly silent on it, maybe even more of a hazard than anything throughout most of the process until the very tail end. Something else that was interesting to note was that we had the votes in the Senate for maybe a year and a half or two years before the vote was brought to the floor. And we had the votes in the Senate to pass the broader version before Cuomo amended it. It was really just a matter of the Senate leadership not bringing the vote to the floor, but the support was there in the legislature to pass this years ago.

When asked if New York could be characterized as a national leader, Nison stated that ” New York is following rather than leading, at this point in time” but prefers a comparison to Prohibition rather than sausagemaking:

 New York was a leader in repealing alcohol prohibition and I think, hopefully, we can do that again. But … we’re the 23rd state [to do this] and although we’re a landmark state, we’ve certainly haven’t been a leader on this issue yet.

NYers-cross your fingers…

[Note-To comply with the US Supreme Court’s fair use ruling in Harper & Row v Nation Enterprises, I am omitting the juicy discussion of Governor Cuomo’s role in enacting the New York law].