But you may want to wait before you go out and buy that vape pen or box of EZ Wider papers. Holdouts, led by Newark’s Sen. Ron Rice, say legal weed will be a death knell to communities of color where drugs and crime have made economic development impossible.
“I’m still a no. Every day there is new information about why we shouldn’t do this,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “This is about money, it’s not about social justice. Why should we pass something that makes money for investors on the backs of black and brown people?”
Rice says if social justice is the goal, decriminalization and a stronger, clearer path to expungements will accomplish that. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs like David Serrano and Salam Diri, who are hoping to open Honey Vault, a dispensary and consumption lounge in Hoboken, are left to cool their heels.