ALBANY – The push for the state to legalize marijuana received a celebrity boost Saturday when Montel Williams told his personal cannabis story at the New Yok State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators Conference.

Williams described how he was using more and more prescription opioids to deal with pain from his multiple sclerosis, a potentially disabling disease of the central nervous system, when a physician advised him to use marijuana.

“Does marijuana stop pain? No. Does marijuana make it livable? Yes,” Williams said moving around in the Empire State Convention Center meeting room packed with a standing room audience of 150 people.

“Adults have the right to make a decision about what they can and cannot do,” said Williams, a former radio talk show host and medical cannabis patient, activist and entrepreneur, who founded Lenitiv Labs.

“Marijuana could be the number one exit drug for opioid addiction,” Williams said.

Williams spoke at the workshop called “From Prisons to Pot: Marijuana Legalization and Revisioning New York State’s Economy” sponsored by Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes, D-Buffalo, and State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, D-Brooklyn.

Peoples-Stokes and Montgomery emphasized that the “marijuana regulation and taxation act” introduced in the State Legislature is not about crime but will have an impact that will help the state’s economy and minority communities that have been borne the brunt of prison terms from marijuana use.

“The social justice impact of this bill is so important,” said New York City Public Advocate Letitia James, who joined the discussion.

Peoples-Stokes said felons cannot be excluded from the bill’s economic impact and that economic justice must prevail in assisting the communities that have suffered the most from criminal enforcement.

Montgomery reminded the crowd that “In order to get something you have to give something.” In this case, the senator said, the upstate Republican senators and the communities they represent have to see there will a positive revenue stream from the bill as state prisons are closed.

“This is an economic development issue. This is not doing something for us without giving something back,” Montgomery said.

Indira Walton, lead organizer for Open Buffalo’s Justice and Opportunity Campaigns, urged those attending to contact their local elected officials and police chiefs to support making marijuana law enforcement a lower priority. Walton pointed out that personal possession of small amounts of marijuana was decriminalized and reduced to a violation punishable by a fine nearly 50 years ago in the state.