History of marijuana legalization in New Jersey
In New Jersey, only medical cannabis is legal yet. Though Governor Philip D. Murphy along with other Democrats tried several times to regulate recreational cannabis, they failed to gather enough support to pass the bill.
Governor Corzine signed the Compassionate Use Medical Cannabis Act of New Jersey in 2010 to regulate marijuana for patients suffering from chronic illness. This year, Governor Philip Murphy passed the Jake Honig Law. This law relieved the restrictions including the amount of medical marijuana any patient could buy and the number of visits to physicians required to purchase it.
For recreational marijuana, Senator Scutari first launched a bill on 17th May to regulate adult-use marijuana. But the Governor of New Jersey at that time, Chris Christie, opposed this legalization. As a consequence, the bill rejected. When Murphy was elected as the Governor of New Jersey, he launched a campaign to regulate marijuana in the state. Governor Philip Murphy had full control of the Democrats in the Senate as well as in the Assembly. But he could not succeed to legalize recreational cannabis. The major reason for failure was the disharmony among the party. Also, African American members of the senate strongly opposed this bill.
The people residing in New Jersey favor the regulation of adult-use cannabis. According to the Cannabis Business Executive, a survey conducted by Monmouth University suggested that 62% of adults of the state were in favor to legalize a small amount of marijuana in possession for recreational purposes.