What's the next step?
The next step to legalizing marijuana in New Jersey comes this Thursday. At 10 a.m., the Assembly Oversight committee will hold a public hearing on the proposed ballot measure.
At 1:30 p.m., the Senate Commerce Committee will do the same.
These hearings aren't new. The ill-fated New Jersey legal weed bill received hearings by multiple Senate and Assembly committees each time it was amended or updated.
The bill was passed by those committees each time — but never went to the full Assembly or Senate for a vote.
New Jersey is set to make its biggest move yet toward legalizing marijuana. And new details on the plan have been released – including how pot could be taxed once it's available in stores.
A legislative committee will hold a hearing on Thursday, Dec. 12 on a plan to hold a public referendum on marijuana legalization in December 2020.
The bill, ACR840, would call for a vote to amend the State Constitution to legalize marijuana for personal, non-medical use by adults who are 21 years of age or older.
This state may become the 12th nationwide to legalize marijuana—but not until November 2020, when the state’s voters will decide the issue after legislators abandoned efforts during a lame-duck session to approve the issue after two years of political wrangling.
While some top political leaders held out hope of passage—including Gov. Phil Murphy—the state Senate, which fell a few votes short of passage in March, again was reported to lack a majority in favor of recreational marijuana.
By the way … I think marijuana should be legal for two reasons: One, because if booze is legal, there is no good reason why weed shouldn’t be.
The second reason? Because while we wait for the legislature to make sure this gets on the ballot - you’re not gonna fudge this one up, are you legislature? - New Jersey residents continue to be arrested in record numbers for simple possession.
According to an ACLU study, the number of marijuana arrests for possession went up 35% from 2013 to 2017.
Gov. Phil Murphy threw his weight behind the decriminalization of marijuana as “short-term relief” until a 2020 ballot measure that will ask voters if the state should legalize recreational cannabis.
Murphy has previously been an opponent of decriminalization, arguing it would open the state’s marijuana business “to the bad guys.”
His sudden reversal comes less than a day after a report by NJ.com highlighting that as talks have failed to push a bill through the state Legislature to legalize adult-use marijuana, the focus would instead be on decriminalization.
If all goes according to proponents' plan, New Jersey may finally be the cheapest at something: legal weed taxes.
A marijuana-legalizing ballot measure expected to go before voters next year states that legal weed sales in New Jersey would only be subject to the state sales tax, which is currently at 6.625%.
Municipalities allowing legal weed dispensaries would also be able to levy their own "transfer tax" up to 2%. Yet the combined total possible tax of 8.625% would easily be the lowest in the United States.
Nearly 2,000 New Jerseyans Tell Legislature: Legalize Marijuana through Legislation This Session
Days after plan announced to push ballot question to legalize marijuana, nearly 2,000 signers from NJ’s 21 counties demanded legislation that centers racial and social justice
Ballot measure plan delays justice, creates more red tape, and does not guarantee crucial racial and social justice provisions
Yesterday, on Nov. 18, Senate President Stephen Sweeney announced that the legislature would try to pass marijuana legalization through a ballot measure rather than legislation.
New Jersey United for Marijuana Reform issued the following statement in response:
In the end, the pathway to New Jersey’s legalization of recreational marijuana will likely end up where many observers believed it would all along: in a statewide referendum in 2020.
Though we had some issues with parts of the legislative package that has been put forward during the many months of debate on the issue, we have long believed adult-use marijuana legalization is the right thing to do, morally, in this state, to reverse decades of biased enforcement that overwhelmingly targets young people of color for minor offenses.
On Monday, top Democratic lawmakers in New Jersey killed a bill that would have legalized recreational cannabis. The move marks the second time lawmakers have pulled the plug on legalization this year. Now, however, lawmakers are proposing to put the question of recreational legalization on the November 2020 ballot, leaving it up to voters.