Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) talked up her new marijuana legalization bill during a speech on racial justice that she delivered on the Senate floor on Thursday.
The senator, whose “Substance Regulation and Safety Act” was introduced late last month, said that ending cannabis prohibition could help law enforcement devote more resources to serious crimes, rather than continue to criminalize people in a racially disparate manner.
The governor of New Jersey said on Tuesday that legalizing marijuana could simultaneously help the state recover economically from the coronavirus pandemic while also promoting racial justice.
During an interview on the radio program Jim Kerr Anytime, Gov. Phil Murphy (D) recognized that the state is going to need to be innovative to generate revenue amid the health crisis. A co-host said cannabis could be part of the solution and the governor agreed.
Congressman James Comer stood in front of a local hemp harvest stacked shin-deep for hundreds of feet in every direction, a tangled mass of bushy branches that looked more like evergreen trimmings than marijuana buds. Little yellow butterflies flitted across the surface of the crop that filled the once-vacant warehouse with the comforting smell of damp grass clippings.
During his campaign for governor of New Jersey, Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat, pledged to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, telling Democrats at a party conference last year in Atlantic City that creating a new tax revenue was not what was motivating him.