New York Senate Kills Decriminalization Of Marijuana

The New York Assembly passed a bill to decriminalize possession of marijuana, below a certain weight. Under this proposed law, the mere possession of marijuana would no longer be an arrestable offense and would only be a one hundred dollar fine. Unfortunately, the Republican lead Senate killed the bill and as a result the possession of marijuana remains an arrestable offense. The law will continue to impose criminal activities for benign conduct that in general causes no harm.

In the meantime, our White Plains criminal defense lawyers and our New York City criminal defense attorneys will continue to defend people who casually smoke marijuana and those who face sale of marijuana charges in New York because the law is wrong. There is no logical reason that people should go to jail for possessing marijuana or selling marijuana. The Amsterdam approach is much better. New York and our government in general does not have the assets or moral justification to continue to spend tremendous assets to arrest and incarcerate stoners. Our Westchester criminal defense lawyers go to great lengths to keep teenagers who are charged with crimes to avoid getting criminal records.

At a time when we have serious financial problems, we can no longer continue to impose outdated overly moralistic laws which penalize activity that should not be criminal. Our drug defense lawyers have defended marijuana cases in the New York criminal courts of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, White Plains, Scarsdale, New Rochelle, Mamaroneck, Ossining, Mount Kisco, Mount Pleasant, Valhalla, Port Chester, Bronxville, Yonkers, Pelham, Pelham Manor, Mount Vernon, Valhalla, Scarsdale, Rye, Tarrytown, Greenburgh, Elmsford and Hartsdale.