No home-grow
As much as some marijuana advocates want to be able to grow at home, this bill does not allow home-grow.
Lawmakers have said that it's a nonstarter.
If it feels like NJ’s medical marijuana program is languishing a bit, that’s because it is. And while Gov Phil Murphy has made some marginal improvements, with a program this bad, baby steps won’t suffice.
Washington DC recently began to honor out-of-state medical cannabis ID cards. I checked out DC’s dispensary scene on a recent visit. Turns out, there’re doing better by patents in DC than we are here in NJ.
Here are 10 lessons lawmakers and regulators could take from DC’s superior example:
Vermont has officially become the ninth state to legalize marijuana for recreational use. The new law took effect over the weekend and gives residents certain rights with respect to the cannabis plant. However, it doesn’t as far as enlisting a taxed and regulated scheme like other legal states. This means there are no retail dispensaries like in Colorado and California, according to a recent report from the Burlington Free Press.
Recreational marijuana is now legal in Vermont, the ninth state to legalize it.
Adults over age 21 will be able to possess up to 1 ounce (28 grams) of marijuana, two mature marijuana plants and four immature plants.
The new law went into effect Sunday and does not set up a system to tax or regulate the production of marijuana. With no provisions in the law for pot shops, users must grow it themselves or buy it from illicit dealers.
Hundreds of local residents every year get wrapped up in the serious criminal laws for cultivating cannabis.
Those who grow their own can face an array of penalties. In New Jersey, growing more than 10 plants brings the most serious charges. In Pennsylvania, growing even a single seedling is considered a felony.
But there is a big difference in how both states treat underground cannabis farmers.
Convictions are easy for prosecutors to win. The sentences imposed are at the discretion of judges and range across the board from light to draconian.
Trailblazing states like Colorado and Washington learned on the fly about the regulation of the marijuana industry. The message from one policy expert to New Jersey: learn from their missteps and learn now.
John Carnevale, who worked on policy at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under three administrations, mapped out the necessary regulative landscape for what appears to be an inevitable industry in New Jersey. And setting it up is no mean task, especially given the lack of research on marijuana and public health and safety issues.
Governor Murphy, a Democrat, indicated he wants to sign legislation to legalize adult use of cannabis by the end of 2018. If the legislation succeeds, analysts predict legalization will generate $1 billion of revenue in its first year.
With positions hardening by the day in New Jersey, it may be worth considering a third option, which I believe threads the proverbial needle between Rice's position favoring decriminalization and full-scale commercialized legalization embodied by Colorado's initiative and various pending bills in the New Jersey Legislature.
With Gov. Phil Murphy estimating over $850 million in 2019 sales, the program will allow selling all cannabis products (flower, vape, concentrates and edibles), anyone over 21 to purchase an ounce of flower, 7 grams of “concentrate” and 16 ounces of edibles, and will license five types of marijuana-related businesses (MRBs): cultivation/manufacturing; processing; wholesaling; transporting and retailing.
That was deliberate, said bill sponsor Sen. Nick Scutari, D-Union. There are simply too many problems to solve: What if the neighbors don't like it? What if a home grower sells some of their weed on the black market — the same black market that marijuana legalization is supposed to run out of business?