Mayor Ras J. Baraka today expressed his concerns about the pending bill to legalize Cannabis sales and use in New Jersey and called for complete expungement of Cannabis offenses, in testimony before the State Assembly Appropriations Committee, at the State Capitol in Trenton.
Calling the proposed measures “insufficient,” Mayor Baraka said “Non-violent convictions for any amount of cannabis should be automatically expunged, and those with convictions should not be barred from owning a cannabis related business. The expungement process is cumbersome and not effective. It still penalizes individuals that have been convicted of marijuana charges. We should remedy all situations, and give people an opportunity to live their lives wholly and peacefully so that previous cannabis offenses do not deny them access to job opportunities that can help improve their quality of life.”
The Mayor also noted that in the City of Newark in 2018 there were 757 marijuana arrests and 3,000 man hours related to marijuana arrests. In 2019, so far, 136 arrests to date and 544 man hours spent.
He released the following statement by the Urban Mayors Association:
While expungement deals with an underlying criminal record, it is a civil action in which the subject is the petitioner or plaintiff asking a court to declare that the records be expunged. In New Jersey, such civil action is marred in layers of court fees and bureaucratic filings which make it very difficult to successfully navigate. Therefore, there should be a clearly defined process for expungement of marijuana convictions under the proposed adult use legislation.