Senate Bill 2703 — to legalize adult recreational marijuana use — was speeding toward a vote next Monday. But in reality, a lack of support and negotiations over amendments, has sent that plan up in smoke.
“We’re doing a couple of things. There’s a seismic shift in public policy and the creation of a new industry,” said Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin. “That’s when you really do what to get it right. I think the goal has always been to do just that and make sure we get it right. And if that takes a little more time than we anticipated, so be it.
State legislative leaders on Monday brushed aside a previous plan to vote on legalizing recreational pot in New Jersey by Oct. 29.
Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin called marijuana legalization a “seismic” shift in public policy and not a thing that can be rushed. Complicating the issue further, Coughlin said, is that legalization would create a whole new industry in the state.
Making pot legal was a campaign promise of Gov. Phil Murphy.
There won’t be a vote to authorize adult-use recreational marijuana in the New Jersey legislature on Oct. 29.
State Senate President Stephen Sweeney admitted he didn’t the votes during a press conference on an unrelated topic Monday.
“The administration has got to be a part of this. This is a big lift,” said Sweeney. “I need help. I need to get to 21.”
Twenty-one is the number of votes needed to pass a bill in the Senate; 41 votes are needed in the Assembly.
Democratic Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin said Oct. 22, 2018, at an unrelated news conference in the Statehouse that he does not anticipate a vote on Oct. 29, 2018.
Senate President Steve Sweeney says he thinks the legislation would come for a vote “this year,” but didn’t specify when.
On the first day of October, Gov. Murphy predicted on Facebook Live that recreational marijuana use could be legal in New Jersey by Halloween.
"It's sooner than later … like Oct. 29," he said to a caller who asked a question asked repeatedly since Murphy said on the campaign trail a year ago that he would legalize marijuana as governor.
But that date might be tricky, since neither the state Senate nor the Assembly has scheduled committee votes or hearings, which typically are held before a bill comes to the floor.
New Jersey's top lawmaker has set a new date for at least one house of the state Legislature to vote legalizing recreational marijuana in the Garden State: Oct. 29.
State Senate President Stephen Sweeney said Thursday he "can't see us not voting" on that day.
Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said in August he expected the Legislature to vote by the end of September.
But that deadline is set to pass in days, and uncertainty has clouded the issue. A bill has yet to be introduced and no committee hearings have been scheduled.
There is an old saying about life’s possibilities that goes something like this: “Brother, as long as you are green, you can grow.”
That might be another way to describe New Jersey’s ongoing efforts to join a growing number of states seeking to legalize recreational, or so-called “adult use,” marijuana, a concept we support, generally speaking, as long as certain criteria — including expungement of some past convictions, clear guidelines for local police and thoughtful statewide regulation — are met.
The attached poll commissioned in May by the labor-tied Project NJ Building for a Better Future, found that New Jerseyans overwhelmingly support medical marijuana and are split on recreational marijuana, and a majority of New Jerseyans want 100 or fewer recreational marijuana stores if marijuana is legalized for adult use.
A top lawmaker in New Jersey said he’s confident he’ll get the votes to fully legalize marijuana and expand the state’s medical cannabis program by the end of next month.
In an interview with Politico, Senate President Steve Sweeney (D) recognized that there are some politicians who “will never support” legalization. But with the help of Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin (D) and Gov. Phil Murphy (D), he expects a pair of far-reaching cannabis reform bills to pass through the legislature in September.
The state Legislature has yet to produce a pair of bills to legalize recreational marijuana and expand the state’s medical cannabis program, but Senate President Steve Sweeney says he has the votes lined up to pass both measures by the end of September.
“There’s some people that will never support it and there are some people who are just hedging their bets because there’s not a bill to look at,” Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said during a wide-ranging sit-down interview with POLITICO.