This open blood feud between Gov. Phil Murphy and Senate President Steve Sweeney has to stop. This personal war-making between the two Democrats is wearying, and worse, is leading to duplication, inefficiency and, frankly, confusion on many issues concerning the state.
The latest policy dispute to be caught in the Murphy-Sweeney crossfire is medical marijuana expansion, an issue that once united Democrats during the years when Republican Gov. Chris Christie was doing everything in his power to see that it was law in name only. He was slow to move to license dispensaries, and implementation was such that New Jersey’s law became one of the most constrained, ineffective programs in the country.
Fast-forward to almost a year and a half of Democrats being in total control in Trenton, and instead of Murphy and Sweeney working in concert to speed medical cannabis expansion, all they seem to do is bicker and feud, fail to communicate and openly call each other out.
While on one hand we are ecstatic about Murphy’s call seeking applicants for 108 medical marijuana businesses statewide, it is disturbing that the governor took this step even as the Legislature was trying to put finishing touches on its own medical marijuana expansion law, known as the Jake Honig Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act.