Let’s grow grass on the roof!

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has proposed a plan that would make the city’s public housing greener. He proposed growing marijuana on the New York City Housing Authority’s lots. Mayor Adams would need federal approval for the NYCHA plan to succeed.

On Tuesday, he said he believes there is a great opportunity for growing marijuana on NYCHA rooftops with an employment aspect and utilizing the medical marijuana aspect, but that there are many levels to achieving this. He added that they will be sitting down with the federal agency to find out if there’s any way they can get an exemption and see how they can make it happen

According to Adams, using these roofs could create job opportunities as well as better use of urban land. According to a statement from a spokesman for Housing and Urban Development, the federal agency responsible for public housing, the mayor faces some real obstacles to making that happen.

As of April 11, Mayor Adams had still not contacted Housing and Urban Development about his proposal.

LEGAL RESTRICTIONS ON THE PROPOSAL

When asked about the mayor’s plan for the roof, HUD’s spokesperson explained that current legal requirements prevent HUD and its public housing partners from allowing public housing residents to use cannabis because the plant is under federal law still classified as an investment is 1 drug. He added that Congress would have to change the law to update this. Mayor Adams said income and training under the plan can go directly to employing people in the area. A spokesman for the mayor, Charles Kretchmer Lutvak, admitted in a statement that federal law was an obstacle to the implementation of Adam’s rooftop cultivation plan. It appears that Mayor Adams, while still clinging to the idea, acknowledges that there are many stages to getting an exemption from state cannabis laws.

In a statement to Gothamist (a website about New York news, arts and events, and food brought to you by New York Public Radio), he said the same neighborhoods that have been under attack for decades are currently being harmed by federal laws still in force. He added that earlier this month a bill to that effect was passed in the House of Representatives and that the people who are holding back progress at the federal level are needed to follow in New York’s footsteps.

The MORE Act, designed to legalize cannabis at the federal level, a bill that would simplify the handling of the drug at the federal and state levels, passed the House of Representatives on April 1. Approval of the bill could result in cannabis being easier to investigate and exempting it from the country’s controlled substances list. To achieve this, the bill would need Senate approval, which is unlikely as the matter has not been taken up by the Senate.

The Democratic leadership in the Senate has indicated that a separate bill, the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, will be introduced in August.

THE HUD’S POSITION TO CANNABIS

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the USA also stands out as a particularly anti-cannabis organization. For example, last year the department said it has an obligation to continue denying people who use marijuana state-subsidized housing, even if they are acting in accordance with state law.

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) wrote to HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge last year urging the department to use its discretion and refrain from penalizing people for using marijuana in states where it’s legal. HUD’s response, however, was unequivocal: it said the department, in accordance with federal law, prohibits the admission of people who use cannabis into HUD-assisted housing, although people who use medicinal cannabis are not excluded.

In 2018, a former Trump-appointed HUD officer in charge of the Department’s regional office for New York and New Jersey announced that she was trying to reconcile conflicting federal and state cannabis laws as she focused on to stay in government-subsidized housing, but it has come to nothing.

Residential occupancy regulations related to cannabis use are still an ongoing issue, but the mayor’s proposal to grow marijuana on NYCHA’s rooftops raises a number of specific legal issues. The New York Housing Authority was also contacted by the Marijuana Moment media outlet, but a spokesman referred the request for comment to the mayor’s office.

While the Department of Housing and Urban Development may not be willing to exercise discretion when it comes to federal cannabis prohibition, it should be noted that the Justice Department has so far refused to take legal action against New York City after authorizing the launch of had the nation’s first safe consumption facilities where people can currently take illicit drugs in a medically controlled environment and receive treatment resources.

FINAL EFFECT

As New York prepares to open its adult marijuana market, the Office of Cannabis Regulation (OCM) announced a significant expansion of its existing medicinal cannabis program. Now physicians will be able to give individuals medicinal marijuana recommendations for any condition they believe could be properly treated with cannabis, rather than relying on a list of specifically qualified diseases.

Although cannabis has been legalized in New York and several other states in the United States, it has yet to be legalized at the federal level, ie nationwide. The House of Representatives recently voted to decriminalize cannabis, but the general expectation is that the bill will fail in the Senate. Just recently, hundreds of licenses for farmers to start producing marijuana were approved in New York. Recreational marijuana sales are expected to begin in late 2022.

NYC WEED, READ MORE…

NY CITY ACTIVIST IN SHORTS DISSES CANNABIS BOMBS!

OR..

NEW YORK MAKES RECREATIONAL CANNABIS LEGAL, NOW WHAT?