High on reform

When he put pen to paper Friday to repeal the statute hiding police disciplinary records, Gov. Cuomo expanded upon last year’s historic trifecta of criminal justice reforms rewriting bail, discovery and speedy trial laws. Another bit of pressing business remains to rebalance the scales of justice.

Though the Legislature last year decriminalized the possession of marijuana, it failed to legalize adult use of the drug. That despite the fact that blacks have been disproportionately put in cuffs and sent to courts and jails and prisons over the decades, though whites use the drug in equal numbers.

Reform, which would also expunge old marijuana-possession records, isn’t just a criminal justice issue. Given the desperate budgetary straits in which the state finds itself due to coronavirus and the resultant lockdown, a legal pot growing and buying market could become a welcome source of new revenue, upstate and down.

There’s a national component to marijuana reform too — something that Joe Biden needs to embrace. Currently, the Drug Enforcement Administration still lists marijuana as it has for 50 years: as a Schedule 1 drug, deemed as dangerous as heroin and technically more dangerous than opioids. It should not remain there.

Thankfully, Biden’s been evolving over the last year. Alas, while supporting decriminalization, he still opposes legalization.

Marijuana needs to be legalized intelligently, guarding against kids getting hooked and stoned drivers taking to the roads. But any way you cut it, the public health harm of pot is minuscule compared to that of alcohol. Legalize it.