At the rally that headlined the Big Apple\u2019s May 4 Cannabis Parade, after its march down Broadway from Midtown Manhattan, a multicultural crowd of impassioned youth filled Union Square. There, they grooved to sounds of live rap, reggae and funk, as activists chimed in between sets to fight for cannabis legalization.<\/p>\n
None of this was surprising to longtime followers of the annual freak-fest, held in the city for more than a generation. What made the difference this year is that one of those pro-cannabis activists on the stage was none other than New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.<\/p>\n
Part of a new wave of progressive insurgent Democrats and a former City Council member from Brooklyn, Williams just became the city\u2019s public advocate in a special election<\/a> earlier this year. He is now the second most powerful figure in city government after Mayor Bill de Blasio.<\/p>\n Making it all the more startling, in his speech, Williams actually admitted that he had \u201csold a little bit of bud\u201d in his younger years. As Gothamist<\/a>\u00a0website quoted Williams\u2019 words at the rally: \u201cIf I was caught, I might not have been an elected official. I might not have been able to get a job.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams went on to demand that a legal cannabis sector in New York state must be designed to benefit those who were criminalized for using or selling the herb in the prohibitionist past.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNobody should make money off marijuana until the communities that have been ravaged by the over-policing and criminalization of it make money,\u201d Williams\u00a0said. \u201cNo one should make money off of marijuana until black and brown communities have access to sell the thing that will be legal that they were arrested for, that they couldn\u2019t get jobs for, that they couldn\u2019t get student loans for.\u201d<\/p>\n This was actually not the first time Williams had come out of the cannabis closet. That was a few days earlier, at an April 29 legalization forum in Brooklyn \u2014 one of\u00a0several such community meetings<\/a>\u00a0held around the city in recent months. At the \u201cTalking About Mary Jane<\/a>\u201d forum, held at the Brooklyn Public Library main branch, Williams revealed he sold small amounts of cannabis as a student at\u00a0Brooklyn Technical High School\u00a0in the early \u201990s.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve said this publicly before but in high school, I sold weed for maybe a year or two,\u201d Williams said at the forum, according to the Brooklyn Eagle<\/a>.<\/p>\n Other speakers at the Union Square rally echoed Williams\u2019s call for an equitable cannabis order in a post-legalization New York \u2014 including another elected official, Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat. Activist voices included the Drug Policy Alliance<\/a>\u2018s New York state director Kassandra Frederique,\u00a0Empire State NORML<\/a>\u2018s legislative director Doug Greene and Josh Weinstein of the networking group\u00a0CannaGather<\/a>.<\/p>\n Headlining performers notably included Clip Payne\u2019s\u00a0420 Funk Mob<\/a>\u00a0(including members of Parliament-Funkadelic), according to an on-the-scene report from\u00a0CelebStoner<\/a>\u00a0website.<\/p>\n It has been the proverbial long strange trip for New York\u2019s\u00a0Cannabis Parade<\/a>. The name itself signifies the event\u2019s mainstreaming, echoing the various ethnic pride parades that punctuate the city\u2019s calendar.<\/p>\n But it had long been known as the Marijuana March, and defied authorities with public smoking even during the harshly intolerant years when Rudy Giuliani was mayor. It was initially launched in 1973 as the Pot Parade by the Yippies<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the radical counterculture group that was also behind the\u00a0famous protests\u00a0at the Chicago 1968 Democratic convention. Since 1999, the New York parade has been the flagship event of an international movement, with a Global Marijuana March held the first Saturday in May in hundreds of cities across the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n The star of the show at\u00a0last year\u2019s<\/a> Cannabis Parade was TV personality and then-New York gubernatorial hopeful Cynthia Nixon.<\/p>\n It was Nixon\u2019s candidacy that\u00a0lit the fire<\/a>\u00a0under incumbent Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who beat her in September\u2019s Democratic primary partly by adopting her cause of cannabis legalization. Cuomo actually introduced a legalization measure in the statehouse in Albany this year and made sounds similar to those heard at the Union Square rally.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to do it in a way that creates an economic opportunity for poor communities and people who paid the price and not for rich corporations who are going to come in to make a buck,\u201d Cuomo said after introducing his legislation, according to the\u00a0Westchester Journal News<\/a>. <\/p>\n However, many activists in New York consider Cuomo to be an obstructionist on the question. His legalization measure was introduced as a rider to the state budget, seemingly in an effort to undercut the previously introduced \u2014 and much more far-reaching \u2014 Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, or MRTA<\/a>. At the end of March, the state budget\u00a0was approved by lawmakers<\/a>\u00a0in Albany, but without Cuomo\u2019s legalization measure. On top of that, his move split support for MRTA, which means that cannabis legalization, considered a shoo-in for 2019 by many, may not happen in New York this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Assemblyman Walter Mosley, a Brooklyn Democrat, spoke for many when he explained why he considered Cuomo\u2019s measure too weak. In an interview with Brooklyn\u2019s\u00a0Kings County Politics<\/a>\u00a0website, Mosley emphasized the\u00a0question of expungement<\/a>\u00a0of past cannabis convictions. MRTA,\u00a0unlike Cuomo\u2019s measure<\/a>, at least contains provisions for resentencing for past convictions. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFor decades the war on drugs, perpetrated by local and national administrations, targeted young black and brown men,\u201d Mosley said. \u201cWe must ensure that the criminal records that were unfairly levied are not just sealed but expunged, and that future revenue from legalization be invested in these communities, funding both education and jobs programs. We cannot move forward with an adult-use program until we know that these injustices of the past are made right.\u201d<\/p>\n Such sentiments issuing from elected officialdom clearly indicate that the vision of a free and equitable cannabis order long advanced by grassroots campaigners in New York state has now hit the mainstream \u2014 embraced, at least, by the left wing of the state\u2019s Democratic party.<\/p>\n Mustering the wherewithal to manifest this vision in reality, however, remains a political challenge.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, where do your city officials stand on cannabis?<\/p>\n The post NYC Cannabis Parade Draws Prominent Politicians as Legalization Stalls Upstate<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
At the rally that headlined the Big Apple\u2019s May 4 Cannabis Parade, after its march down Broadway from Midtown Manhattan, a multicultural crowd of impassioned youth filled Union Square. There, they grooved to sounds of live rap, reggae and funk, as activists chimed in between sets to fight for cannabisContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[468,50,4312,3792,9706,3920,69,7706,687,4186,9913,4187,593,97],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35110"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35111,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35110\/revisions\/35111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Jumaane Williams Comes Out of the Cannabis Closet<\/h4>\n
From the Counterculture to the Mainstream<\/h4>\n
Stalemate in Albany<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: NYC Cannabis Parade Draws Prominent Politicians as Legalization Stalls Upstate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"