Adults 21 and up can use cannabis legally, and some old pot records are cleared

If you’re 21 or older in New York, you can legally have up to 3 ounces of cannabis and 24 grams of concentrate, such as edibles or oil. You can use it at home and in most places where you can smoke tobacco, and you can grow up to six plants at home for yourself. If you had a conviction for conduct that is no longer a crime, the state automatically expunges it or suppresses it from background searches while expungement is pending; you do not have to apply. Once a record is expunged, even a court or prosecutor can’t see it.

The law also generally protects your job. Your employer can’t fire you or refuse to hire you for legal cannabis use outside work hours, off the job site, and without company equipment. An employer may still act if specific, observable symptoms show that cannabis has reduced your work performance or interfered with workplace safety, or if state or federal law or federal funding rules require it.

Legal sales are taxed. After the state’s costs to run the program, 40% of the remaining state tax revenue goes to communities harmed by the drug war, 40% goes to education, and 20% goes to drug treatment and public education.

Sen. Liz Krueger and Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes carried the bill for years. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Gov. Andrew Cuomo negotiated the final agreement. The Senate approved it 40–23 and the Assembly 94–56 on March 30, 2021; Cuomo signed it the next day.