FDA approval means very little in terms of safety. Think of the class action law suits against pharma experimental drugs that end up harming people or causing birth defects.

FDA approved Big Pharma drugs without effectiveness data
http://www.naturalnews.com/032279_Big_Pharma_fraud.html

And cannabis should never have been made illegal.

Timothy Leary’s Supreme Court case made cannabis prohibition unenforceable. He argued that in order to get a Tax Stamp in order to “legally” grow or possess cannabis, the application required disclosing the amount you possess. This is self-incrimination and entrapment. Leary won.

Then Nixon made up the harmful and unethical public policy called the war on drugs.

I think it is a better demonstration of acting as an elected official to address issues that are at least possible to fix. What suggestions for improving education do you have? Email them to his office if you have a good idea to fix education in NY.

I would say that the culture in the US does not value education as much as celebrity or wealth, and the education in the US compared to other industrialized countries is not great.

Some cultivars or strains have been shown to improve depression, there is no link between lung cancer and cannabis, in fact, people who smoke cannabis, by burning it and inhaling it, have lower rates of lung cancer than people who smoke nothing at all.

Some people can’t smoke cannabis, or convince themselves of this. Some people who use cannabis have emotional reaction patterns like anxiety attacks. These people, as Jamaicans say, “don’t have a a head for ganga.” No one said it’s for everybody. Alcohol is not either, but at least it’s regulated and thugs are not selling it on the street and killing to protect their turf or market.

But the fed 260 billion/year budget for the drug war is plainly a failure and does more harm than good. And is the cause of organized crime (selling the drugs). $260 billion to 20+ drug war related federal agencies, though ineffective, that is, not worth keeping, a toiled for tax revenues.

And NY already had laws on the books saying they would not frisk, or body search people, looking for items on their person, to punish them for having an item like a bag of dried flowers.

Cannabis has been shown to improve depression

Cuomo was also apologizing for the law enforcement of NY going back on their word about frisking people. Frisking is reminiscent of a police state, abuse of power and corrupt public policy, which cannabis prohibition is

For an initiative or referendum measure to appear on a
ballot, a petition setting forth the proposal must be filed with the
State Board of Elections and be signed by electors at least equal in
number to 5 percent of the votes cast for all candidates for governor
at the last gubernatorial election. Such signatures must include at
least 5,000 signatures from each of at least three-fifths of the
State’s congressional districts.

**The only way NYS legalization can happen. This way the citizens have a voice and we are not ruled over by “representatives”, e.g., NYS Republican Senators. NYS needs progress now to stay competitive, this would help the state in so many ways!**