Mayors from some of the largest cities in New Jersey today warned that recreational marijuana dispensaries wouldn’t be welcomed in their boundaries unless people with marijuana convictions were released from jail and their records get expunged.
Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla met in Newark City Hall to tell lawmakers that those provisions and others needed to be passed in order for them to get behind recreational marijuana.
Legal marijuana is so close in New Jersey you can almost smell it. But does soon-to-be-filed legislation do enough to ensure social equity under a legal cannabis system?
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) isn’t so sure. And he’s calling on fellow mayors to join him in pressing for stronger social justice protections such as the expungement of records for marijuana offenses and permitting those with cannabis-related convictions to obtain business licenses to participate in the legal industry.
“Let me be the first to say I stand with @rasjbaraka on this,” Fulop tweeted in response to a Baraka press release on social justice reforms pertaining to marijuana.
“The state of NJ needs #Newark , #JerseyCity and urban mayors to be fully engaged to meet their state projections. These provisions outlined here are important to us to move 4ward. Period.”
Baraka’s release came in light of him sending a letter to the NJ Urban Mayors’ Association urging them to join him in calling on the state legislature to reform marijuana laws.
The state attorney general's office will soon announce that it will not seek to extend a statewide adjournment of marijuana possession cases in municipal court when an order expires on Sept. 4th, according to two people with knowledge of the decision.
Instead, the attorney general's office will issue guidance to New Jersey's local, municipal and county prosecutors informing them that while marijuana possession remains illegal, they may exercise discretion and decide not to prosecute some simple possession cases.
Every city in America knows that it’s a bad idea to prosecute low-level, nonviolent marijuana offenses. It wastes scarce municipal resources and does nothing to enhance public safety. What’s more, even though whites and blacks use marijuana at similar rates, blacks are more harshly punished for it.
That’s why, on July 19, marijuana offenses were effectively decriminalized in Jersey City, New Jersey’s second most populous city.
On the same day New Jersey's attorney general announced an immediate adjournment of marijuana-related cases in municipal courts, people in the state's second-largest city appeared to welcome the news.
In Jersey City's Journal Square neighborhood Tuesday, a number of passersby shared their thoughts on the future of marijuana in the state just hours after New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal advised all local and county prosecutors to put a hold on marijuana-related offenses until Sept. 4.
As some officials in New Jersey are pushing to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, the state’s attorney general directed prosecutors on Tuesday to seek to pause any cases stemming from marijuana-related offenses for at least a month, in a move regarded as a possible step toward decriminalizing such offenses.
Last week, Jersey City became the first New Jersey municipality to decriminalize low-level cannabis possession, but state officials immediately interceded to shut this new policy down. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and municipal prosecutor Jake Hudnut held a press conference last Thursday to announce that they were decriminalizing minor marijuana possession and use, effective immediately. The next day, NJ Attorney General Gurbir Grewal stepped in and announced that the new policy was void, as Hudnut did not have the legal authority to supercede state drug laws.
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop’s unilateral decision to instruct the city’s prosecutor to decriminalize marijuana in his city was met with a swift rebuke from state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal.
Jersey City is the first in our state to seek to decriminalize marijuana, by letting people have a small amount and treating it like a traffic ticket, instead of arresting them.
But now it's in a legal tussle with the state Attorney General, who says the city doesn't have the authority to do this on its own. However that gets resolved, we're rooting for Jersey City.