With budget hearings and discussions beginning to ramp up in Trenton, the current month might be the last best time to throw a marijuana-legalization bill over the finish line, the state Legislature’s top Democrat said Thursday.
Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-3rd District, speaking to a select group of reporters in Trenton, said a vote needs to be held this month to hold an election on a measure legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana for adult-use.
“April’s out, because it’s budget hearings and plenty of members will make plans, there’s Easter, there’s religious holidays. So that takes you into May and then the budget’s going on,” Sweeney said.
That itself is problematic, given that lawmakers might view negotiations on the budget and marijuana-legalization through a tit-for-tat, transactional lens.
“That could create mischief,” Sweeney said.
A tentative agreement calls for taxing marijuana at $42 an ounce, and for a five-member Cannabis Regulatory Commission to oversee the new industry. Gov. Murphy would be able to pick three of the five members.