From vaping to marijuana to transportation, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Governor Ned Lamont discussed a regional approach to topics.
Cuomo and Lamont met behind closed doors at the governor’s Hartford residence Wednesday.
“Why wouldn’t Connecticut and New York work together? We are neighbors we have the same problems,” Cuomo said. “We have a common border. We are better together than we are separate.”
“New York City is the global capital of the world and we are a part of that,” Lamont said. “The more we work together be it transportation and these other things, the better it is for Connecticut and the better it is for our region including New York.”
Both governors agreed in the importance of working together and investing in Metro-North.
“We can speed up our transportation System, do what we can to in gridlock, get the rail going in a way that it should be going, but it doesn’t work and less the Metro-North goes all the way into Grand Central Station. It can’t stop at the border,” Lamont said.
They also laid out plans for a uniform approach to legalization of recreational marijuana.
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“What age are you thinking about? What is the THC content that you are allowing? What is the tax rate that you were going to charge?” Cuomo said.
“This is something that we want to do together,” said Lamont. “We want to do it in a timely basis. We don’t want to give up marijuana to the black market. We’ve seen how dangerous that can be. Coming up with our public safety relations and other rules, if we do that together going forward I think that would be a priority for both of us.”
Both Connecticut and New York attempted to legalize recreational marijuana this year. Neither state was able to legalize it. Cuomo said legalization is a priority for next year's legislative session, according to the AP.
Vaping was also a topic discussed during the meeting.
