The state Legislature failed to send bills to Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk before the Memorial Day weekend that would have set up an expungement process for cannabis-related criminal offenses and dramatically expand the state’s medical marijuana program.
But social equity has been both a sticking point and selling point this year in New York and New Jersey, among other states weighing whether to join the 10 that allow recreational use of pot.
Complicating the law-making process, sometimes even among supporters, are questions about how best to erase marijuana convictions and ensure that people who were arrested for pot benefit from legal marijuana markets.
Pushing pot
The push to further open the state’s medical marijuana program and advance bills to offer second chances for individuals who get caught with small amounts of drugs comes after months of legislative starts and stalls. It also reflects leaders’ inabilities to pass a plan to legalize adult recreational use that Gov. Phil Murphy has long urged.
Now that it appears New Jersey won’t be legalizing marijuana until at least after November 2020, state legislators might move this week to essentially decriminalize possession of small amounts of the drug.
NJ.com reports that a bill to expunge the records of people with cannabis offenses would reduce the penalties for anyone caught with up to two ounces of marijuana to a civil citation carrying a $50 fine.
Other cannabis-related offenses would remain as criminal charges but carry reduced penalties, according to the report.
New Jersey lawmakers advanced legislation Monday expanding the state’s medical marijuana program and making it easier for certain convicts to clear their records.
Democrat-led Assembly and Senate committees advanced the measures, with votes in each chamber coming as early as this week.
Monday’s votes come days after Senate President Steve Sweeney said a bill legalizing cannabis for adults 21 and older didn’t have enough support to pass and he instead would pursue a 2020 referendum.
What will be different about the expungement process if that bill is signed into law?
If signed into law, bill S-3205 would make more crimes eligible for expungement — including offenses involving controlled dangerous substances — and cut down the wait time to three years. It would also establish an expedited expungement process for marijuana-related offenses and create an "e-filing" system for expungement petitions.
A new "clean slate" program would wipe away all offenses at once for anyone who has a clean record for 10 years after their last offense.
The Assembly version of the expungement legislation would allow individuals with prior convictions for using, possessing or distributing cannabis to petition the courts to get their records cleared. A version of the expungement legislation that began circulating on Friday had decriminalization language attached to it, but the Assembly Judiciary Committee stripped the provision from the bill during its own consideration and pulled the expungement legislation from its agenda entirely.
Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex) issued the following statement on legislation that would revise procedures and eligibility for the expungement of criminal records and expand access to medicinal cannabis:
“I thank the members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee for moving ahead with the Compassionate Use Medical Cannabis Act which makes medicinal cannabis more accessible to patients who could benefit from it.
Accordingly, plan B, they have said, is to significantly expand the current medical cannabis system and push through a separate bill (S-3205) for expunging the records of individuals with arrests or convictions for low-level marijuana crimes.
Murphy said he’s open to signing both bills, but “the devil will be in the details.”
Sweeney had tied the legalization bill, NJ S2703 (18R), to the two other measures relating to the state’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry and criminal justice reform.