New York Senators File Bill To Decriminalize Possession Of All Drugs


New York senators have launched a invoice for the 2025 session to broadly decriminalize drug possession.

The laws from Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D) and 4 cosponsors would each eradicate felony and civil penalties for drug possession whereas additionally making a activity power that’d be chargeable for learning and making suggestions about further reforms.

A justification memo hooked up to the measure emphasizes that substance misuse is broadly thought-about a well being situation, but “New York and other states in the USA have treated it as a moral failing and a crime.”

“This approach has led to the stigmatization and incarceration of millions with this disease, contrasting sharply with the compassionate treatment afforded to individuals with other illnesses like cancer or anxiety disorders,” it says. “While those with these conditions are generally viewed as deserving of support and medical care, individuals with substance use disorders are often disparaged, criminalized, and deemed unworthy of assistance and compassion.”

“For far too long, New York and the rest of the U.S. have centered their responses to drug use around enforcement, maintaining this approach long after it became evident that such costly policies failed to achieve their intended goals of preventing illicit drug use. The proposed legislation seeks to shift the focus from criminalization and stigma to a science- and compassion-based approach by reducing criminal and civil penalties associated with personal possession of controlled substances.”

“By reframing individuals with SUD as patients in need of care, akin to those with any other health issue, this legislation aims to decrease deaths, reduce incarceration rates, curb the spread of blood-borne diseases, and save millions of dollars currently spent on incarcerating individuals for having a medical condition,” the memo concludes.

The bill itself features a legislative findings part stating that criminalizing individuals over medication “causes significant harm to individuals who use drugs by disrupting and further destabilizing their lives.”

“The purpose of this legislation is to save lives and to help transform New York’s approach to drug use from one based on criminalization and stigma to one based on science and compassion, by eliminating criminal and civil penalties for the personal possession of controlled substances,” it says.

The laws would make a sequence of amendments to state statute to attain that objective, together with by changing the phrase “criminal” with “unlawful” with respect to possession offenses.

An individual who commits a easy possession violation would not face a misdemeanor conviction; as an alternative, they might both pay a $50 high quality or take part in a “needs screening to identify health and other service needs, including but not limited to services that may address any problematic substance use and mental health conditions, lack of employment, housing, or food, and any need for civil legal services.”

The measure stipulates that screenings “should prioritize the individual’s self-identified needs for referral to appropriate services.” The laws additionally provides 45 days to finish the screening with a view to have the the high quality waived.

“Failure to pay such fine shall not be the basis for further penalties or for a term of incarceration,” it clarifies.

Additionally, the invoice requires the institution of a “drug decriminalization task force” that might be chargeable for creating “recommendations for reforming state laws, regulations and practices so that they align with the stated goal of treating substance use disorder as a disease, rather than a criminal behavior.”

Members of the duty power would want to review quantities of medicine that ought to represent private possession, limitations to accessing companies for individuals with substance use issues, suggestions for added coverage reform and selling remedy, hurt discount packages and extra.

Key officers together with the state well being commissioner could be a part of the panel, along with others appointed by the governor and legislative leaders. They would want to provide a report with preliminary findings inside one 12 months of the invoice’s efficient date.

The laws is sort of an identical to an earlier drug decriminalization bill that Rivera filed in 2023. That proposal didn’t advance to enactment, nonetheless.


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Meanwhile, a number of psychedelics bills have been filed in New York for the 2025 session—together with one calling for the legalization of sure entheogenic substances comparable to psilocybin and ibogaine for adults 21 and older.

Sponsored by Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal (D), together with eight cosponsors, the laws would amend state statute to make authorized the “possession, use, cultivation, production, creation, analysis, gifting, exchange, or sharing by or between natural persons of twenty-one years of age or older of a natural plant or fungus-based hallucinogen.”

Rosenthal’s new invoice was launched simply days after one other New York lawmaker, Sen. Nathalia Fernandez (D), prefiled a measure that might legalize psilocybin therapy for patients with qualifying conditions.

New York officers additionally lately introduced that the state’s legal marijuana market has now surpassed the $1 billion sales mark. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) known as the milestone “a testament to the hard work of those who helped build the strongest cannabis industry in the nation: one that prioritizes equity, ensures public safety, and empowers communities.”

The determine displays whole gross sales for the reason that cannabis market’s launch more than two years ago, in late 2022.

After a slow rollout in marked by lawsuits and other delays, authorized marijuana gross sales in New York have picked up significantly in the past several months. Regulators say that’s the results of extra licensed companies opening in addition to what they describe as a profitable crackdown on unlicensed outlets.

Separately, in November, Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes (D) known as for the state to extend financial aid to retail operators operators struggling under high-cost loans from a social equity fund created as a core a part of the legalization program.

Later within the month, Hochul signed two new cannabis-related bills into law—one to revive the Cannabis Growers Showcase program, the place producers sell products directly to consumers at farmers market-style events, and one other clarifying that hashish is categorized as an agricultural crop within the state.

The governor argued in June, in the meantime, that there’s a direct correlation between stepped-up enforcement and “dramatically” increased legal sales. A report by state officers earlier this 12 months found both “growing pains” and “successful efforts” in New York’s marijuana market launch.

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