{"id":119728,"date":"2025-08-05T02:29:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T02:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/119728\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T02:29:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T02:29:17","slug":"of-course-new-yorks-bungled-weed-legalization-fueled-a-wave-of-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/119728\/","title":{"rendered":"OF COURSE New York’s bungled weed legalization fueled a wave of addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

An explosive Post exclusive<\/a> revealing that legal weed is fueling a wave of addiction is fresh proof of Albany\u2019s feckless legalization. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the stupidest things our society has done \u2014 they legalized cannabis during the opioid crisis,\u201d grumbled Luke Nasta, president and CEO of Camelot Counseling of Staten Island.<\/p>\n

Thing is, neither the Legislature\u2019s leaders nor Gov. Andrew Cuomo (then eyeing a 2020 presidential run) cared about the risks, the clear downsides or even elementary practicality when they rammed through legalization in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They let social-justice obsessions write the new rules, then installed a clueless crew to run the new state Office of Cannabis Management.<\/p>\n

As the OCM dithered over awarding the new licenses, illegal shops popped up all over the city and state \u2014 shielded from law enforcement by the new laws\u2019 lunatic provisions.<\/p>\n

So the outlets that had proven their ability by selling under the 2014 medical-marijuana law got crushed<\/a> even as qualified new potential sellers couldn\u2019t open for business.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n

Oh, and Albany didn\u2019t even allow for common-sense limits on smoking dope in public, so the reek of weed is everywhere. <\/p>\n

Worst of all, the politicians shut their ears to warnings about the impact of cannabis on young brains \u2014 a prime reason the Medical Society of New York <\/a>opposed legalization.<\/p>\n

So the state saw an explosion of flavored weed products and edibles, plainly aimed at hooking young people susceptible to addiction.<\/p>\n

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Any legalization risked bringing an avalanche of new addicts, but New York\u2019s move might as well have been timed and designed to maximize the damage.<\/p>\n

How mad does it get? Consider the nonprofit Housing Works, which runs drug-treatment services and a cannabis-dispensary arm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It tells its pot customers they\u2019re \u201chelping fund lifesaving services that support thousands of New Yorkers each year\u201d \u2014 except that its treatment centers on the addict-enabling \u201charm reduction\u201d approach.<\/p>\n

Prospering by feeding misery: That\u2019s pretty much the essence of Albany\u2019s approach to legalization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An explosive Post exclusive revealing that legal weed is fueling a wave of addiction is fresh proof of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":119729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[1556,5229,5297,1749,4691,3272,3344,46601,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,1269,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-119728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-addiction","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-andrew-cuomo","11":"tag-cannabis","12":"tag-editorial","13":"tag-legislature","14":"tag-marijuana","15":"tag-marijuana-legalization","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-newyork","19":"tag-newyorkcity","20":"tag-ny","21":"tag-nyc","22":"tag-opinion","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114973806716187357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}