By the way … I think marijuana should be legal for two reasons: One, because if booze is legal, there is no good reason why weed shouldn’t be.
The second reason? Because while we wait for the legislature to make sure this gets on the ballot - you’re not gonna fudge this one up, are you legislature? - New Jersey residents continue to be arrested in record numbers for simple possession.
According to an ACLU study, the number of marijuana arrests for possession went up 35% from 2013 to 2017.
Gov. Phil Murphy threw his weight behind the decriminalization of marijuana as “short-term relief” until a 2020 ballot measure that will ask voters if the state should legalize recreational cannabis.
Murphy has previously been an opponent of decriminalization, arguing it would open the state’s marijuana business “to the bad guys.”
His sudden reversal comes less than a day after a report by NJ.com highlighting that as talks have failed to push a bill through the state Legislature to legalize adult-use marijuana, the focus would instead be on decriminalization.
On Nov. 27, Rice issued a strong statement of support for decriminalization, a concept he's repeatedly backed in the past.
He’s the lawmaker who’s getting the credit — or, in some circles, the blame — for derailing the effort to pass a law legalizing recreational use of marijuana, pushing hard instead for decriminalization.
And Sen. Ron Rice is straight up about what he thinks of the two-year effort to add New Jersey to the list of states where weed is legal.
If all goes according to proponents' plan, New Jersey may finally be the cheapest at something: legal weed taxes.
A marijuana-legalizing ballot measure expected to go before voters next year states that legal weed sales in New Jersey would only be subject to the state sales tax, which is currently at 6.625%.
Municipalities allowing legal weed dispensaries would also be able to levy their own "transfer tax" up to 2%. Yet the combined total possible tax of 8.625% would easily be the lowest in the United States.
Nearly 2,000 New Jerseyans Tell Legislature: Legalize Marijuana through Legislation This Session
Days after plan announced to push ballot question to legalize marijuana, nearly 2,000 signers from NJ’s 21 counties demanded legislation that centers racial and social justice
Ballot measure plan delays justice, creates more red tape, and does not guarantee crucial racial and social justice provisions
Yesterday, on Nov. 18, Senate President Stephen Sweeney announced that the legislature would try to pass marijuana legalization through a ballot measure rather than legislation.
New Jersey United for Marijuana Reform issued the following statement in response:
In the end, the pathway to New Jersey’s legalization of recreational marijuana will likely end up where many observers believed it would all along: in a statewide referendum in 2020.
Though we had some issues with parts of the legislative package that has been put forward during the many months of debate on the issue, we have long believed adult-use marijuana legalization is the right thing to do, morally, in this state, to reverse decades of biased enforcement that overwhelmingly targets young people of color for minor offenses.
Why We Must End Cannabis Prohibition In New Jersey
The video includes compelling statements by:
1) Scott Rudder - The New Jersey Cannabusiness Association (NJCA)
“New Jersey arrests 94 people every day for marijuana possession.”
2) Charlana McKeithen - Garden State NORML
“For a fair and just society, New Jersey must legalize marijuana.”
3) Dr. David Nathan - Doctors For Cannabis Regulation (DFCR)
“This drug should never have been made against the law in the first place.”
An expungement bill that was originally tied to two other marijuana bills — a since-passed medical marijuana expansion bill and a now-dead legalization bill — continues to languish despite top lawmakers from all three of the state’s top Democrats.
Now that legislative leaders have given up the push to legalize under the golden dome, the expungement bill has been thrust into something of a twilight zone.