How Cuomo flip-flopped on a marijuana timeline

By Dan Goldberg and Laura Nahmias

Governor Andrew Cuomo's recent request to expedite a new medical marijuana program is a direct reversal of the position he took as the state's marijuana law was being crafted.

This week, Cuomo sent a letter to the state health department in which he cited the recent deaths of two children as reason to "accelerate the process for this specific dire population."

But during negotiations over the bill earlier this year, it was Cuomo who was responsible for killing a provision that would have provided emergency access to patients in desperate need of the drug, according to Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, who sponsored the Compassionate Care Act.

Cuomo, who takes pains to inoculate himself against future characterization as a liberal New York Democrat, has boasted since the introduction of New York's medical marijuana laws that it will be the most tightly regulated program in the country.

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