“This is a land grab, and there are a discrete number of prime license opportunities,” Steve White, CEO of Harvest Health, said in the April call with investors, referring to state permits to grow and sell marijuana.
White sees the cannabis market as “oligopolistic” — one where a handful of companies control production and sales. Such a market would make it harder for smaller businesses to compete, and potentially would keep prices artificially high.
Marijuana legalization activists across the country are holding their breath with every stop and start in the push to legalize weed in the Garden State.
And it's not just because of their hopes that New Jersey becomes a billion-dollar linchpin in the tristate area.
A spokesperson for the department tells The Philadelphia Inquirer they issued the ban last week because the Pennsylvania Cannabis Festival in Scranton is not a "medically focused event."
Festival organizer Jeff Zick said he stands to lose tens of thousands of dollars after dispensaries paid more than $8,000 each to set up booths at the festival.
About 10,000 people are expected to attend the fifth annual free event held April 20.
The new year marks the start of the 116th Congress, as well as the launch of numerous state legislative sessions.As lawmakers return to work at the state and federal levels, elected officials and advocates for social justice and marijuana reform alike are plotting their cannabis legislation goals.
WeedMaps News contacted some of the leading legislative changemakers to ask what's on their agenda for 2019.
Nearly two-thirds of New Jersey voters support legalizing the adult use of marijuana and expunging past criminal convictions associated with the substance, according to statewide polling data released today by Quinnipiac University.
Sixty-two percent of voters say that they support allowing adults “to legally possess small amounts of marijuana for personal use.” Support is strongest among voters ages 18 to 34 years of age (90 percent) and Democrats (78 percent). Support was weakest among Republicans (41 percent) and those voters over the age of 65 (46 percent).
Several factors may be at play. Federal marijuana cases have dropped almost 50 percent since 2013—the same year that former U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Cole issued a memorandum, colloquially known as the “Cole memo,” to federal prosecutors on marijuana enforcement priorities. The document has generally been interpreted as a message to U.S. attorneys not to prosecute people complying with state cannabis laws.
A supportive state-level chief exec, like New Jersey’s Phil Murphy, can push to expand existing marijuana programs. An anti-weed governor, on the other hand, can block the will of his state’s own voters, which is exactly what Maine’s Paul LePage has been doing. Last year, he vetoed a bill to establish a recreational marijuana market, even though his state's voters had said in 2016 they wanted to create one, and now he's threatening to veto another recreational marijuana bill passed by lawmakers. (The legislature may be able to override his veto this time.)
Sanders’ support of the legislation drew praise from cannabis activists. “Leaders in the Democratic Party are increasingly recognizing that leading the charge on legalization is not only good policy, but good politics,” said NORML’s Justin Strekal in a statement. “The constituencies which the party claims to stand for are the ones who have most felt the weight and lifelong consequences of marijuana criminalization.”
“Former Speaker Boehner is still held in high regard by a large percentage of the GOP membership and voter base,” Erik Altieri, executive director of NORML, a marijuana advocacy group, said in a statement. “We look forward to his voice joining the growing chorus calling for an end to cannabis criminalization.”
Keith Straub, who in 1970 founded the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, is like the godfather of the entire industry. He says New Jersey needs to make sure there’s room for the little guy.