When the idea was advanced that New Jersey might become the region’s first legalized marijuana marketplace, one of the auxiliary benefits proposed was that it had potential to lift real estate markets that may have gone overlooked.
As businesses hurried to set up shop, a wave of real estate deals would be a boon for all, it was said.
Attorney Gene Markin said that excitement has been fast fading.
“So far it has been pretty disappointing to see long-time legislators failing to deliver their promise to end prohibition,” Chris Goldstein, an activist, writer and educator from Philadelphia told The Marijuana Times. “In 2016, at the Democratic National Convention, the party passed a platform stance called ‘A Pathway to Legalization’. But the machine Democrats of New Jersey have put up nothing but roadblocks ever since. In some ways we can’t expect Trenton to have the courage to regulate adult-use cannabis when no other state legislature has taken that plunge yet.
The setback is the latest of many, and it means that recreational marijuana may not be a reality in New Jersey for at least another year and a half. Legalizing marijuana was a campaign promise of Murphy's, and lawmakers had spent months before he even took office laying the groundwork for its passage.
But Murphy and Sweeney were unable to muster enough support from fellow Democrats to pass the measure. The Assembly was said to have had enough votes to surpass the 41-vote threshold in that chamber, but the Senate fell short of its required 21 votes.
New Jersey’s top lawmaker said Tuesday he was giving up on the effort to legalize recreational marijuana through the Legislature and would instead put the issue up for voters to decide next year.
Senate President Steve Sweeney also said he would move forward with bills to expand the state’s medical cannabis program and expunge existing marijuana convictions.
It was a gaffe, but it was telling.
Hours after a well-orchestrated push to pass a legal-weed bill died in the Trenton statehouse, Gov. Phil Murphy announced to the clicking of cameras that a “postmortem” would be done.
The men standing next to him at the lectern — Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin — chuckled and quietly corrected him.
Wednesday marks the beginning of May, which means there’s only a month to go if state leaders want to realize their latest hope of passing a bill to legalize recreational marijuana in New Jersey before the full frenzy of state budget season rolls around.
So what are the chances a vote will happen over the next 31 days? State Senate President Stephen Sweeney, New Jersey’s highest-ranking state lawmaker, pegs it at “50/50.”
Despite what felt like sea-changing momentum, marijuana legalization in New York and New Jersey have met serious roadblocks — and at almost exactly the same time. Just a few months ago, it had seemed all but certain in both states, with supportive governors backing progressive legalization poised to pass Democratic-controlled statehouses. Then, in the span of just a few days in late March, both states saw their efforts fall apart. Officials remain optimistic, but refuse to give a timetable for possible legalization.
It wasn't supposed to go down this way. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy made marijuana legalization a focal point for his administration, and surveys found that a majority of people in New Jersey supported legalization. But New Jersey lawmakers disagreed on the issue for a number of reasons, many of them revolving around the proposed law’s social justice component, and now the future of legalization in the Garden State is in question.
Days after Gov. Phil Murphy shelved a plan to drastically expand the state’s existing medical marijuana program, the Democratic governor said he will give lawmakers until May to pass the contested legislation or he will resume his efforts on expanding access to medicinal cannabis.
“We’re not going to wait around a lot,” Murphy said at an unrelated event in Saddle Brook early March 28.
The New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory and Expungement Modernization Act, including among its provisions expungement of past marijuana offenses to right what proponents call past social injustices, didn’t have the needed 21 votes for passage in the state Senate and was pulled from the scheduled board list of bills for the upper chamber’s Monday voting session. The Assembly followed suit and canceled its scheduled vote on the measure as well.