Cynthia Nixon is running for governor of New York, if you haven’t heard. The actress and activist is still best known as Miranda Hobbes of Sex and the City, but she has a long history of pushing for progressive causes in New York City and statewide, and her primary challenge against Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo has been highly visible, both for the obvious reason of her celebrity and out of genuine enthusiasm for her ideas, which include robust support for public education and a proposition to fix the city’s deteriorating subway system. Today, she released a video on social media outlining another sensible position that further positions her as the choice for New Yorkers who are tired of Cuomo’s staid centrism: legalize weed!
The video, which you can watch below, focuses mostly on the racially disparate way in which marijuana laws are enforced both in New York and nationwide. “There are a lot of good reasons for legalizing marijuana, but for me it comes down to this,” she says in part. “We have to stop putting people of color in jail for something that white people do with impunity.”
A lot of you have been asking about my position on marijuana. Here it is. pic.twitter.com/iEKLHgClFN
— Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) April 11, 2018
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Even after eight states and Washington D.C. have legalized, Nixon’s support as an executive would be relatively rare, were she to win Cuomo’s seat in November. Only Vermont passed legalization through its legislature and governor; the other seven used a statewide ballot initiative. Cuomo called for a panel to investigate the possibility of recreational legalization in New York last year (the state authorized medical marijuana in 2014), but before that he has been a longstanding opponent to legalization. “It’s a gateway drug, and marijuana leads to other drugs and there’s a lot of proof that that’s true,” he said in 2017. “There’s two sides to the argument. But I, as of this date, I am unconvinced on recreational marijuana.”
