New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Wednesday that the state will allow cancer patients and other citizens suffering from certain ailments to use medical marijuana.
20 hospitals in New York State will gain clearance to distribute medical pot, CNN reported Cuomo as saying during the yearly State of State speech in Albany.
"We will establish a program allowing up to 20 hospitals to prescribe medical marijuana, and we will monitor the program to evaluate the effectiveness and the feasibility of a medical marijuana system," Cuomo stated. "Research suggests that medical marijuana can help manage pain and treatment of cancer and other serious illnesses."
Although Cuomo has publicly stated his opposition toward medical marijuana in the past, the Democrat announced on Wednesday that he will let the hospitals hand out medical pot under state Department of Health regulations.
Marijuana advocates who were informed of Cuomo's plans earlier this week are pushing for lawmakers to introduce a bill that will put a state medical marijuana plan into action.
But the state Senate's Republicans might block the legislation from moving forward - much like when the "Compassionate Care Act," a bid to tax and regulate medical marijuana, was introduced in the Assembly.
State Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, who has spearheaded the move toward new medical marijuana legislation, said that Cuomo's plan was the beginning of a "limited and cumbersome program," that he, nonetheless, said was a marked advancement.
Another Democrat from Manhattan who has also been gunning for legalization and taxation of marijuana use said the current policy is too pricey.
State. Sen. Liz Kreuger argued that New York State laws on pot cost too much, especially when it comes to demand for police presence and the futures of the people who are convicted of crimes, the Associated Press reported.
States that allow the use of medical marijuana usually prescribe the drug for nausea, cancer chemotherapy, glaucoma, chronic pain, and sometimes, seizures.
Long Island resident Missy Miller told CNN that she mulled moving to California to have more access to a strain of pot called charlotte's web oil - a substance that has helped stop her 14-year-old son Oliver's seizures.
"It's scary every day," Miller said of Oliver's seizures, which sometimes happen as frequently as 12 times a day. "Every seizure that he has, I get anxious. Every seizure, I worry, is this going to be the seizure that doesn't stop?"