In a move that comports with New Jersey’s recent legalization and decriminalization of marijuana, the state’s Attorney General directed law enforcement agencies to stop arrests for minor marijuana offenses and for prosecutors to immediately dismiss all such pending criminal charges. The policy change comes at a time when New Jersey is preparing a framework for the regulation of the legal cannabis industry.
Recent data shows that drug treatment admissions for marijuana have declined by 80% in Philadelphia. This is likely a result of a 2014 ordinance decriminalizing possession along with new procedures adopted by District Attorney Larry Krasner, a civil rights attorney elected in 2017.
Part of that truth is that racial disparities have long existed within the U.S. criminal justice system, and an example of that is the disparate enforcement of cannabis criminalization against minority communities, Booker said in the Friday interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.
New Jersey's racial disparity is slightly lower than the national average, with Black people 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than white people.
Black people are about 3.1 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as white people in Essex County, according to a recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union.
On Monday – the cannabis "holiday" of 4/20 – the ACLU released a nationwide study that analyzed marijuana arrests from 2010 to 2018. (See the full methodology)
Essex County's ratio of 3.1 to 1 was slightly lower than New Jersey's average, where black people were 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as white people, the ACLU said.
The governor of New Jersey signed a bill into law establishing a streamlined process for expunging criminal records resulting from low-level marijuana violations, as well as other nonviolent offenses.
It is no secret that the potential legalization of adult recreational use cannabis has not gone exactly as the current administration had planned. Legalization was to be coupled with expungement provisions that would effectively remove from the record all low-level marijuana/hashish/paraphernalia arrests and convictions.
Someone is arrested for marijuana possession in New Jersey every 15 minutes. And that startling number has only gotten worse over the past few years, according to civil rights advocates.
On Friday, the ACLU of New Jersey released a report that examined the state's 2016 and 2017 crime data. Researchers found that – despite a growing chorus of voices calling for legalization and expungement – marijuana arrests have actually risen "dramatically" over the past few years.
Read the full report.
According to the ACLU-NJ:
Jackson police said they made 87 motor vehicle stops and issued 32 motor vehicle summons on Route 537 outside Six Flags as part of a "directed enforcement detail in an effort to address distracted, aggressive and impaired driving.”
Route 537 is the main four lane road to the park bringing traffic from Route 195.
Officers on foot, bicycle and in police vehicles were also looking for “illegal activity” in the parking lot including and issued at least nine summons for marijuana possession, according to Jackson police.
Marijuana isn’t merely growing more acceptable in the eyes of the American public; it’s entered the luxury market, with the department store Barney’s advertising a “cannabis lifestyle” in their recently-opened luxury shop The High End. With marijuana recreationally legalized in eleven states and D.C., the way the drug is used has changed.