The Legislature passed two marijuana bills on Dec. 17 — one to launch a cannabis industry and the other to decriminalize possession for adults. But Murphy has since demanded an additional “cleanup” bill to address a contradiction in the two measures over penalties for minors caught with marijuana. The legalization bill makes underage possession a disorderly-persons offense, while the decriminalization bill does away with all penalties. Murphy would not sign a bill, he said, that makes marijuana legal for minors.
But several drafts of a cleanup bill have come up short.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, which Scutari chairs, had been scheduled to hold a vote on the latest clean-up bill at 3 p.m. Wednesday. That meeting was ultimately canceled.
The committee punted on the legislation on Tuesday in order to provide more runway for negotiations between the Murphy administration and Democratic lawmakers. But after a caucus meeting early Wednesday afternoon, it became apparent there wasn’t a path forward.
Gov. Phil Murphy’s deadline to act on legislation setting up New Jersey’s recreational marijuana market has been extended a second time. Murphy had to act by Thursday, but lawmakers pushed the date to Friday amid concerns over a winter storm. Earlier this month, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin moved the deadline to Thursday from Feb. 8.
The first-term Democratic governor and the Democrat-led Legislature have been talking about changes to the legislation behind closed doors.
New Jersey police have arrested more than 6,000 people for low-level cannabis possession despite voters approving legalization reforms last November, according to a state judiciary report outlined by NJ.com. In January, police arrested 2,378 people for possessing less than 50 grams of cannabis, an increase from the 2,125 people arrested for possession in November and 1,703 arrested in December.
Following weeks of negotiations with the governor, a top New Jersey lawmaker said on Wednesday that he is abandoning revised compromise legislation to implement marijuana regulations in the state.
It’s been more than three months since New Jersey voters approved an adult-use cannabis legalization referendum. In December, lawmakers sent Gov. Phil Murphy (D) a pair of bills to implement legal sales and decriminalize possession, but a dispute with the governor over his desire to see penalties instituted for underage people has stalled the process.
The cancellation means lawmakers won’t be able to move a cleanup bill to full votes before each chamber for Friday, when Murphy must veto legalization and decriminalization bills on his desk lest they become law at noon without his signature.
For months, legislators and Gov. Phil Murphy have jockeyed on how to implement the state’s legal marijuana market after voters overwhelmingly approved legalization at the polls.
Lawmakers sent decriminalization and legalization bills to his desk on Dec. 17. Those bills have sat there, gathering dust, in the time since.
State Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Linden) plans to introduce a technical bill to bring into line language differences between decriminalization and legalization bills on the governor’s desk as a fallback in case lawmakers fail to reach an agreement on a cleanup bill in time for votes in both chambers scheduled for later this week.
Jo Anne Zito, a veteran of New Jersey’s cannabis crusade, testified on behalf of the legalization effort to the New Jersey senate. She is concerned that residents may be confused as to the legal status of cannabis, post-referendum and still pre-legalization, since a situation exists that simple misunderstandings can lead to a stint in jail and a criminal record. Zito has also championed “home grow” and advocated that state lawmakers need to allow residents to grow their own plants in their own homes for their own use.
Lawmakers are rallying around new legislation that may earn the approval of the Murphy administration. This proposed legislation would create civil penalties and warnings for underage users of the drug – a chief concern of Gov. Phil Murphy who has said that the state Legislature's initial plan didn't restrict underage adults and children for using the drug.
The new legislation, however, would effectively end searches of underaged people who are under suspicion of using or possessing the drug. Smelling the drug's odor would also not be a valid reason to investigate.
The new “cleanup bill”, introduced by Sens. Nilsa Cruz-Perez and Nick Scutari, may have found a compromise acceptable to a majority of lawmakers as well as the governor. It would establish a $50 fine for possession of up to one ounce for those aged between 18 and 20 and a $100 fine for larger amounts, while those under 18 would be given a warning that would escalate upon repeat offenses rather than immediately imposing a civil penalty.