Legalize and Tax Marijuana

Section 1. This act shall be known and may be cited as the "marihuana regulation and taxation act".

§ 2. Legislative findings and intent. The legislature finds that existing marihuana laws have not been beneficial to the welfare of the general public. Existing laws have been ineffective in reducing or curbing marihuana use and have instead resulted in devastating collateral consequences that inhibit an otherwise law-abiding citizen's ability to access housing, employment opportunities, and other vital services. Existing laws have also created an illicit market which represents a threat to public health and reduces the ability of the legislature to deter the accessing of marihuana by minors. Existing marihuana laws have also disproportionately impacted African-American and Latino communities.

The intent of this act is to regulate, control, and tax marihuana in a manner similar to alcohol, generate millions of dollars in new revenue, prevent access to marihuana by those under the age of twenty-one years, reduce the illegal drug market and reduce violent crime, reduce participation of otherwise law-abiding citizens in the illicit market, end the racially disparate impact of existing marihuana laws and create new industries and increase employment.

Nothing in this act is intended to limit the authority of any district government agency or office or employers to enact and enforce policies pertaining to marihuana in the workplace, to allow driving under the influence of marihuana, to allow individuals to engage in conduct that endangers others, to allow smoking marihuana in any location where smoking tobacco is prohibited, or to require any individual to engage in any conduct that violates federal law or to exempt anyone from any requirement of federal law or pose any obstacle to the federal enforcement of federal law.

Nothing in this act is intended to limit any privileges or rights of a medical marihuana patient or medical marihuana caregiver under the New York Compassionate Care Act.

It is the intent of this act that no child shall be the subject of a child neglect or abuse investigation or proceeding based solely on a parent's alleged use of marihuana. A newborn child's positive toxicology result for marihuana, is not sufficient on its own to support a finding of child neglect or abuse. Enactment of this act shall provide sufficient basis for New York state to favorably resolve open investigations and to amend and seal individuals' family court records and records of indicated child abuse or neglect reports currently in the statewide central register of child abuse and maltreatment based solely on the use of marihuana or where the reporter of suspected abuse or neglect was a law enforcement agency or staff person and the report was based solely upon the presence of a child during a marihuana-related arrest.

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§ 3. Section 3302 of the public health law, as added by chapter 878 of the laws of 1972, subdivisions 1, 14, 16, 17 and 27 as amended and subdivisions 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29 and 30 as renumbered by chapter 537 of the laws of 1998, subdivisions 9 and 10 as amended and subdivisions 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 and 40 as added by chapter 178 of the laws of 2010, paragraph (a) of subdivision 20, the opening paragraph of subdivision 22 and subdivision 29 as amended by chapter 163 of the laws of 1973, subdivision 31 as amended by section 4 of part A of chapter 58 of the laws of 2004, subdivision 41 as added by section 6 of part A of chapter 447 of the laws of 2012, and subdivisions 42 and 43 as added by section 13 of part D of chapter 60 of the laws of 2014, is amended to read as follows:

§ 3302. Definitions of terms of general use in this article. Except where different meanings are expressly specified in subsequent provisions of this article, the following terms have the following meanings:

1. "Addict" means a person who habitually uses a controlled substance for a non-legitimate or unlawful use, and who by reason of such use is dependent thereon.

2. "Administer" means the direct application of a controlled substance, whether by injection, inhalation, ingestion, or any other means, to the body of a patient or research subject.

3. "Agent" means an authorized person who acts on behalf of or at the direction of a manufacturer, distributor, or dispenser. No person may be authorized to so act if under title VIII of the education law such person would not be permitted to engage in such conduct. It does not include a common or contract carrier, public warehouseman, or employee of the carrier or warehouseman when acting in the usual and lawful course of the carrier's or warehouseman's business.

4. ["Concentrated Cannabis" means

(a) the separated resin, whether crude or purified, obtained from a plant of the genus Cannabis; or

(b) a material, preparation, mixture, compound or other substance which contains more than two and one-half percent by weight of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, or its isomer, delta-8 dibenzopyran numbering system, or delta-1 tetrahydrocannabinol or its isomer, delta 1 (6) monoterpene numbering system.

5.] "Controlled substance" means a substance or substances listed in section thirty-three hundred six of this [chapter] title.

[6.] 5. "Commissioner" means commissioner of health of the state of New York.

[7.] 6. "Deliver" or "delivery" means the actual, constructive or attempted transfer from one person to another of a controlled substance, whether or not there is an agency relationship.

[8.] 7. "Department" means the department of health of the state of New York.

[9.] 8. "Dispense" means to deliver a controlled substance to an ultimate user or research subject by lawful means, including by means of the internet, and includes the packaging, labeling, or compounding necessary to prepare the substance for such delivery.

[10.] 9. "Distribute" means to deliver a controlled substance, including by means of the internet, other than by administering or dispensing.

[11.] 10. "Distributor" means a person who distributes a controlled substance.

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[12.] 11. "Diversion" means manufacture, possession, delivery or use of a controlled substance by a person or in a manner not specifically authorized by law.

[13.] 12. "Drug" means

(a) substances recognized as drugs in the official United States Pharmacopoeia, official Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States, or official National Formulary, or any supplement to any of them;

(b) substances intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or animals; and

(c) substances (other than food) intended to affect the structure or a function of the body of man or animal. It does not include devices or their components, parts, or accessories.

[14.] 13. "Federal agency" means the Drug Enforcement Administration, United States Department of Justice, or its successor agency.

[15.] 14. "Federal controlled substances act" means the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, Public Law 91-513, and any act or acts amendatory or supplemental thereto or regulations promulgated thereunder.

[16.] 15. "Federal registration number" means such number assigned by the Federal agency to any person authorized to manufacture, distribute, sell, dispense or administer controlled substances.

[17.] 16. "Habitual user" means any person who is, or by reason of repeated use of any controlled substance for non-legitimate or unlawful use is in danger of becoming, dependent upon such substance.

[18.] 17. "Institutional dispenser" means a hospital, veterinary hospital, clinic, dispensary, maternity home, nursing home, mental hospital or similar facility approved and certified by the department as authorized to obtain controlled substances by distribution and to dispense and administer such substances pursuant to the order of a practitioner.

[19.] 18. "License" means a written authorization issued by the department or the New York state department of education permitting persons to engage in a specified activity with respect to controlled substances.

[20.] 19. "Manufacture" means the production, preparation, propagation, compounding, cultivation, conversion or processing of a controlled substance, either directly or indirectly or by extraction from substances of natural origin, or independently by means of chemical synthesis, or by a combination of extraction and chemical synthesis, and includes any packaging or repackaging of the substance or labeling or relabeling of its container, except that this term does not include the preparation, compounding, packaging or labeling of a controlled substance:

(a) by a practitioner as an incident to his administering or dispensing of a controlled substance in the course of his professional practice; or

(b) by a practitioner, or by his authorized agent under his supervision, for the purpose of, or as an incident to, research, teaching, or chemical analysis and not for sale; or

(c) by a pharmacist as an incident to his dispensing of a controlled substance in the course of his professional practice.

[21. "Marihuana" means all parts of the plant of the genus Cannabis, whether growing or not; the seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of the plant; and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of the plant, its seeds or resin. It does not include the mature stalks of the plant, fiber produced from the stalks,

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oil or cake made from the seeds of the plant, any other compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of the mature stalks (except the resin extracted therefrom), fiber, oil, or cake, or the sterilized seed of the plant which is incapable of germination.

22.] 20. "Narcotic drug" means any of the following, whether produced directly or indirectly by extraction from substances of vegetable origin, or independently by means of chemical synthesis, or by a combination of extraction and chemical synthesis:

(a) opium and opiate, and any salt, compound, derivative, or preparation of opium or opiate;

(b) any salt, compound, isomer, derivative, or preparation thereof which is chemically equivalent or identical with any of the substances referred to in [subdivision] paragraph (a) of this subdivision, but not including the isoquinoline alkaloids of opium;

(c) opium poppy and poppy straw.

[23.] 21. "Opiate" means any substance having an addiction-forming or addiction-sustaining liability similar to morphine or being capable of conversion into a drug having addiction-forming or addiction-sustaining liability. It does not include, unless specifically designated as controlled under section [3306] thirty-three hundred six of this [article] title, the dextrorotatory isomer of 3-methoxy-n-methylmorphinan and its salts (dextromethorphan). It does include its racemic and levorotatory forms.

[24.] 22. "Opium poppy" means the plant of the species Papaver somniferum L., except its seeds.

[25.] 23. "Person" means individual, institution, corporation, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership or association, or any other legal entity.

[26.] 24. "Pharmacist" means any person licensed by the state department of education to practice pharmacy.

[27.] 25. "Pharmacy" means any place registered as such by the New York state board of pharmacy and registered with the Federal agency pursuant to the federal controlled substances act.

[28.] 26. "Poppy straw" means all parts, except the seeds, of the opium poppy, after mowing.

[29.] 27. "Practitioner" means:

A physician, dentist, podiatrist, veterinarian, scientific investigator, or other person licensed, or otherwise permitted to dispense, administer or conduct research with respect to a controlled substance in the course of a licensed professional practice or research licensed pursuant to this article. Such person shall be deemed a "practitioner" only as to such substances, or conduct relating to such substances, as is permitted by his license, permit or otherwise permitted by law.

[30.] 28. "Prescribe" means a direction or authorization, by prescription, permitting an ultimate user lawfully to obtain controlled substances from any person authorized by law to dispense such substances.

[31.] 29. "Prescription" shall mean an official New York state prescription, an electronic prescription, an oral prescription[,] or an out-of-state prescription[, or any one].

[32.] 30. "Sell" means to sell, exchange, give or dispose of to another, or offer or agree to do the same.

[33.] 31. "Ultimate user" means a person who lawfully obtains and possesses a controlled substance for his own use or the use by a member of his household or for an animal owned by him or in his custody. It shall also mean and include a person designated, by a practitioner on a

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prescription, to obtain such substance on behalf of the patient for whom such substance is intended.