The governor, whose new budget estimates that the state would collect $60 million in marijuana sales tax revenue for the 2020 fiscal year, said New Jersey is “not across the finish line yet, but we are closer than ever before” to legalizing cannabis.
“Most importantly, this is the right step for eliminating decades-old and persistent racial and social inequities,” he said. “But it is also our chance to create an entirely new state-based industry with the potential to create thousands of good-paying jobs, expand opportunities for minority business owners and jumpstart billions of dollars in new economic activity.”
“I will only sign this if it expunges the records of those who have been put through our criminal justice system for prior marijuana offenses,” he added.
Tax revenue from legal cannabis sales will help “provide new, annually recurring revenues to support crucial investments in the State,” according to a budget brief.
It will also “end needless arrests for non-violent and low-level drug possession.”