New Jersey: Home of low taxes
The biggest change in the ballot measure concerns the tax structure — or lack thereof.
While legislators have called for levying legal weed taxes anywhere from 12% to 25% or placing a flat $42 per ounce rate, the ballot resolution specifically states that legal weed sales would only be subject to the New Jersey state sales tax.
That 6.625% tax rate would be the lowest marijuana tax in the United States, which Scutari said would help push customers away from the black market and into legal marijuana dispensaries.
For the second time this year, top Democratic lawmakers in New Jersey pulled the plug on legislation to legalize cannabis sales for recreational use, killing any likelihood Gov. Phil Murphy will deliver on a key campaign promise before 2021.
Instead, legislative leaders introduced a resolution Monday that would put a recreational use question on the November 2020 ballot. The resolution would need to pass both houses of the state Legislature by three-fifths majorities in one year or by simple majorities in consecutive years to make it onto the ballot.
Senate President Steve Sweeney and Senator Nicholas Scutari, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued the following joint statement today announcing the introduction of legislation to seek voter approval of a constitutional amendment to legalize adult use marijuana in New Jersey:
Senate President Steve Sweeney and State Sen. Nicholas Scutari announced they would introduce a bill to put recreational marijuana on the 2020 ballot Monday.
“We are moving forward with a plan to seek voter approval to legalize adult use marijuana in New Jersey,” the two said in a joint statement. “We introduced legislation today to authorize a public referendum for a proposal that will lead to the creation of a system that allows adults to purchase and use marijuana for recreational purposes in a responsible way.”
A number of states aim to legalize adult-use cannabis in 2020
However, this hasn't stopped individual states from legalizing cannabis in some capacity over the past 23 years. Beginning with California in 1996, a grand total of 33 states have legalized medical marijuana. Of these 33 states, 11 have passed legislation allowing for the legal consumption and/or sale of recreational weed. And this could be just the beginning.
NJ Senator Declan O’Scanlon (R-Little Silver, Monmouth) wants voters to decide if should legalize recreational cannabis. If a bill recreational cannbis comes up, in lame-duck, O’Scanlon’s a NO vote.
“There’s legitimate value to be gained by waiting,” Sen O’Scanlon told InsiderNJ. “We’ll have a lot more info from other states and that’ll make a compelling (referendum) debate in November of 2020.”
As state lawmakers begin their final meetings of this year’s legislative session, there was hope the senate might revisit marijuana legalization. State Senate President Steve Sweeney told NJ.com before the Nov. 5 elections that he would try to wrangle enough votes to pass a legal weed bill, but it appears those efforts are already falling short and prospects for a vote before a new legislature is seated in January are dim.
Marijuana legalization
Easily the most controversial matter lawmakers are likely to tackle during the next two months is whether to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use.
Historically marijuana has been the victim of bad press, scary stories about the social and moral impact it had on users. Once consider at gateway drug – the first step towards harder drugs – marijuana has recently received a reprieve. Part of its bad press came from the fact that to buy marijuana, you were often required to seek out dealers who often also dealt harder drugs.
But even this is something of an illusion since many marijuana dealers made up a cottage industry, supplementing their income by selling to people they knew at the local bar or even at their workplace.
One of the signs of cannabis-related change next year is the new political committee Make It Legal Florida, which registered with the state earlier this month. It’s chaired by Nick Hansen, a longtime advisor to Republican State Sen. Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg, who recently took on the role of southeastern director of government affairs at MedMen, the California company that’s attempting to take the retail pot world by storm.