'Legalize marijuana without corporatized marijuana,' says New York mayor Bill de Blasio

"It's a way to say we had an injustice, now let's give the very people who were the victims, the economic benefit"
Civilized (US)
Sunday, February 3, 2019

De BlasioNew York Mayor Bill de Blasio supports Governor Andrew Cuomo's pledge to legalize recreational marijuana, but he doesn't want the the market to be overrun by big corporations when cannabis prohibition is repealed. "We have an industry that is just licking its chops, waiting to come in and corporatize marijuana—to do exactly what the tobacco industry did with cigarettes, to do exactly what the pharmaceutical industry did with things like oxycontin. What we need [to do] is legalize marijuana without corporatized marijuana," Mayor De Blasio told Bill Maher. To prevent that from happening, the mayor wants to hand the market over to former victims of cannabis prohibition—people who were arrested and imprisoned for marijuana-related offsenses.