It’s a fair bet that in New Jersey, when Democrats in power start talking about “diversity,” they’re simultaneously sticking it to minorities. In this case, marijuana legalization provided the forum in which to do damage as those same individuals used as part of a pre-Election Day human barricade in the name of social justice found themselves summarily scrapped post Election Day as that apparently unnecessary ingredient in legislative leadership’s pro-business bonanza.
“We suspected everything that happened – that the bill would get pushed through without any social equity,” said the Reverend Pastor Charles Boyer, pastor at Bethel AME Church in Woodbury and executive director of Salvation and Social Justice.
On Nov. 3rd, the public voted overwhelmingly in favor of legalizing marijuana: 2,737,682 (67.08%) to 1,343,610 (32.92%).
“Once they had a mandate to legalize, they would do it without dollars coming back to hard-hit communities,” Boyer said.
“Then we raised hell about it,” he added.
According to NJ Spotlight, “Senate President Steve Sweeney said Monday he will continue to pursue a second constitutional amendment to dedicate the lion’s share of cannabis tax revenue to social justice programs. But he and his fellow senators appear to be alone on that front. Though he reached an agreement Friday with Gov. Phil Murphy and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin on a bill to legalize marijuana for recreational use, neither the governor nor the speaker are supporting the Senate president’s new constitutional amendment.”