Deputy state Commissioner of Health Jackie Cornell will be departing the Murphy administration for a top post at 1906, a big player in the cannabis industry.
The move takes Cornell out of the running to replace Commissioner of Health Shereef Elnahal, who is leaving the cabinet to become the new president of University Hospital in Newark.
The truth is New Jersey should have legalized recreational marijuana a long time ago. Gov. Phil Murphy said during his campaign that he was going to make legalization one of his top priorities during his first 100 days in office. It was a move that Senate President Stephen Sweeney believed could be squared up by April of last year, allowing recreational sales to begin in 2019.
But lawmakers were never able to come to terms.
New Jersey lawmakers advanced legislation Monday expanding the state’s medical marijuana program and making it easier for certain convicts to clear their records.
Democrat-led Assembly and Senate committees advanced the measures, with votes in each chamber coming as early as this week.
Monday’s votes come days after Senate President Steve Sweeney said a bill legalizing cannabis for adults 21 and older didn’t have enough support to pass and he instead would pursue a 2020 referendum.
On the statewide scene, cannabis advocates had New York and New Jersey pegged as the great green hope. Both states were expected to become the next to legalize marijuana for recreational use. It was a step that would have shown the country, specifically the goons in Congress, just how far the U.S. has progressed from the times when weed was considered mostly taboo. However, all hope of this happening has gone to the proverbial crap shack, according to the New York Times. Both jurisdictions have essentially thrown in the towel on the prospect of legal weed.
As we say out West, all hat and no cattle.
At the start of the year, legalization of recreational marijuana in New Jersey and New York appeared all but inevitable.
The Democratic governors of both states supported legalization and the legislatures in both states were controlled by Democrats (in New Jersey 56-26 Ds in the Assembly and 25-15 in the Senate; in New York 106-43 in the Assembly and 39-23 in the Senate). National and statewide polling in both states showed overwhelming support for legalization, especially among Democrats.
Legal weed in New Jersey is dead. After a prolonged attempt at resuscitation, it was called at 11 a.m. on Wednesday by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney.
Well, actually, wasn’t it dead already? What were the odds Gov. Phil Murphy or legislative leaders were going to get the votes for it? Everyone was dug in. Maybe there was a glimmer of hope for supporters, but that was extinguished by the tax incentives fight. And those who don’t want to see the tax incentives examined so closely certainly have an interest in blaming the marijuana legislative failure on the investigation.
Murphy said he’s open to signing both bills, but “the devil will be in the details.”
Sweeney had tied the legalization bill, NJ S2703 (18R), to the two other measures relating to the state’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry and criminal justice reform.
Murphy, at an unrelated press conference, rejected that premise.
“I reject being blamed for trying to help citizens out who have nowhere else to turn, whose lives are at stake or quality of life is a stake,” he said during the presser. “I wouldn’t call that blame. This is my responsibility as governor.”
Sweeney said the two had been packaged with the recreational marijuana bill in the hope that support for them would provide leverage to get recreational marijuana passed. But with a handful of Senators solidly opposed to creating a legal marijuana industry in New Jersey, he decided to break the measures apart.
“I thought we were going to get [legalization] done in the first 100 days of Murphy’s term,” Sweeney said. “But people have strong feelings … There are bills that are a matter of conscience where it’s really hard to push people.”
On May 13, 2019, the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) announced amendments to the state’s medical marijuana rules aimed at expanding access to the program, which implements New Jersey’s Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act. Perhaps most significant among the adopted amendments is the creation of a separate permitting system for cultivation, manufacturing and dispensing marijuana for medical purposes. Previously, the program was vertically integrated, i.e. all three were packaged together under a single licensing process.