New York Senators approved a measure to extend housing protections to registered medical marijuana users, in an effort to avoid evictions solely based on the lawful use cannabis.
Although the marijuana laws in California already provide anti-discrimination for registered medical cannabis users, Sen. James Sanders’ (D) bill would specifically codify the fact that landlords could not evict tenants who use cannabis. On Monday, it was passed by the Senate Standing Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development.
A tenant is not to be removed from a rental unit due to a medically-certified use of marijuana.
It continues, “A landlord may use this defense by showing that they are seeking possession because of the certified medical use medical marihuana of an individual, and would not have sought possession if it weren’t for that use.” The landlord has the right to show that there is another legal reason for wanting possession.
In the accompanying justification, it is stated that federal legislation “hasn’t caught up to this situation and puts medical users at risk.”
The report also mentions the case of an evicted 78-year old Niagara Falls resident who had been evicted due to medical marijuana consumption.
Housing was returned to the individual after an official from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development weighed in via social media. The official stated that federal and state law must be revised to require private landlords “to legally permit” tenants to reside in their homes, even if it’s a medical cannabis patient.
“This legislation would seek to ensure that tenants lawfully using medical marihuana are protected from eviction proceedings,” the justification memo of the bill—an earlier version of which passed the full Senate in 2020—states.
During Trump’s first administration, an official from HUD pledged that the conflict between federal and state laws on marijuana would be resolved when it came to the residency of federally subsidized housing. However, it is unclear whether the Trump Administration will address the matter this time around.
Although the New York bill mentions the federal-state conflict regarding marijuana and housing in the justification section, federal laws prohibiting cannabis would still be applicable.
Last year, Sen. Cory Booker and Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost filed legislation at the federal level to repeal an outdated statute which has led to millions of drug offenders being denied housing.
Booker and Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) separately reintroduced legislation last year to allow people living in federally assisted housing to use marijuana in compliance with state law without fear of losing their homes.
Norton has filed similar versions of the proposal over recent sessions, but the reform has yet to be enacted.
She wrote to HUD a year later, urging the agency to exercise executive discretion in not punishing people who use cannabis in legalized states. The HUD Secretary of then-President Joe Biden responded by telling Norton that federally funded housing could not be provided to marijuana users, regardless if their state laws were followed.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) also raised the issue during a committee hearing in 2019, pressing former HUD Secretary Ben Carson on policies that cause public housing residents and their families to be evicted for committing low-level offenses such as marijuana possession.
Ocasio-Cortez and then-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) also filed legislation that year that would protect people with low-level drug convictions from being denied access to or being evicted from public housing.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) also introduced an affordable housing bill in 2020 that included a provision to prevent landlords from evicting people over manufacturing marijuana extracts if they have a license to do so.
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