New York senators have approved a bill to expand housing protections for registered medical marijuana patients, aiming to prevent evictions based solely on their lawful use of cannabis.
While the state’s marijuana laws already include anti-discrimination protections for legal consumers, the bill from Sen. James Sanders (D) would explicitly codify that landlords cannot evict tenants for using cannabis as registered patients. It cleared the Senate Standing Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development on Monday.
The legislation states that a “tenant shall not be removed from possession of a residential unit pursuant to this article because of such person’s certified medical use of medical marihuana.”
“It shall be a defense to a proceeding to recover possession of a residential unit that a landlord seeks such recovery because of a person’s certified medical use of medical marihuana, and that, but for such use, the landlord would not seek to recover possession,” it continues. “A landlord may rebut such defense by showing that he or she seeks to recover possession of a residential unit because of any other lawful ground.”
The justification memo attached to the legislation says that while safeguards are “in place to ensure that this person
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