In or out? That was the question for more than 1,500 municipalities across New York State under its new marijuana law, which asked localities to decide whether to allow cannabis businesses in their areas. With the final count in, the State Office of Cannabis Management says that 34 percent of all municipalities have said no to both dispensaries and on-site consumption lounges, including 10 percent of all cities with a total population of almost 120,000. Although polls show that Americans overwhelmingly favor marijuana legalization, legal states including Colorado, California, and Washington have seen large numbers of local governments opt-out, citing reasons such as the potential for negative impact on vulnerable young people and the danger of drugged driving. In New York, any municipality that has initially said no can opt back in at any time.
Meanwhile, the American Lung Association warns in its annual tobacco report that while adult smoking rates have fallen from 22 percent in 2003 to 14 percent in 2019, vaping and flavored cigarettes products threaten to turn back the progress made in reducing tobacco use. The organization notes that high school smoking rates have dropped significantly since 2002, but that more than 2 million high school and middle school students said they use e-cigarettes in 2020. The report says that companies are exploiting loopholes in regulations by introducing products with synthetic nicotine, some of them flavored, that have become the most popular e-cigarette products among teens. The Association has called on the Food & Drug Administration to regulate synthetic nicotine as a drug.
And finally, the movement to decriminalize possession of hard drugs is growing across the U.S., with states including Massachusetts, Vermont, and possibly California considering following the lead of Oregon, the first state to do so. In an opinion piece in the New York Times, Maia Szalavitz writes that these states are coming around to the conclusion that it is impossible to treat addiction as a disease and a crime simultaneously. Noting that 80 percent of prisons and jails offer medications to treat substance use, she says the lack of treatment while incarcerated deters people from seeking further help. However, it’s still too early to evaluate the effectiveness of Oregon’s approach, which includes a significant expansion of treatment availability that has not yet happened. So far, however, very few of those who have been cited for possession make a required follow-up call to get the required treatment evaluation.