New York is the 15th state to legalize recreational marijuana.
Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the cannabis legislation today (March 31), a day after the State Legislature passed the bill.
NY Times reports certain parts of the law went into effect immediately. People 21 and over can have up to three ounces of cannabis or 24 grams of concentrated forms, like oils. New Yorkers can smoke cannabis in public areas where you can smoke tobacco.
People can’t smoke weed in schools, workplaces, or inside a car. New York City banned smoking in parks, beaches, boardwalks, pedestrian plazas, and playgrounds, where tobacco smoking is banned.
The report notes NY will quickly become one of the largest markets of legal cannabis in the nation. The law will allow people with past convictions and those “involved in the illicit cannabis market to participate in the new legal market.”
Crystal D. Peoples-Stokes, the Democratic majority leader in the Assembly who sponsored the bill, said, “Unlike any other state in America, this legislation is intentional about equity.”
Take a look at a news report by ABC: