Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Jewish Lawmaker Who Voted Against Medical Marijuana Busted on Pot Charge

A Jewish Republican lawmaker who voted against legalizing medical marijuana in 2011 was charged with pot possession after New York state police found a bag of weed in his car.

Steve Katz

Steve Katz, a controversial Tea Party supporter who lives in suburban Yorktown, NY, was stopped for speeding at about 80 mph on the Thruway on his way to Albany Thursday, the New York Post reported.

The trooper smelled marijuana and Katz, 59, turned over a small bag of dope, the paper said.

State police spokesman Sgt. Don Baker told the Daily News there was no evidence the conservative activists planned to puff on the wacky tobacky in the car.

“If there was a concern that he was smoking while driving, we would have brought in a drug recognition expert to determine if he was under the influence, but there was no indication that he was,” Baker told the paper

Katz was elected with Tea Party support in 2010 despite reports of federal and state tax liens, animal abuse charges and settlement of a lawsuit involving sex harassment at his practice, the paper said.

Katz was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana and given a ticket for a future court date.

“I am confident that once the facts are presented that this will quickly be put to rest,” Katz asserted in a statement.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.