Medical marijuana plan: Home delivery, lounges, taxed longer
Among the other latest changes:
Among the other latest changes:
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.
New Jersey lawmakers advanced a bill out of two committees Monday that would expand the state’s medical cannabis program.
The measure includes a provision to transfer the program’s oversight from the state Department of Health to a dedicated regulatory commission, according to NJ.com.
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.
While the legislative push to legalize weed may be dead, the effort to expand the New Jersey medical marijuana program and overhaul the expungement process could soon be headed to a floor vote.
The Jake Honig Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act received unanimous approval from the Senate Health committee on Monday, the first vote since last week's announcement that marijuana legalization would head to the ballot instead of the Senate floor.
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.
Senator Ronald L. Rice today released the following statement regarding Senate President Steve Sweeney’s announcement to move forward with legislation that will expunge marijuana-related criminal records and expand New Jersey’s medical marijuana program.
get your FL Office of Medical Marijuana Use card!
get your MD Medical Cannabis Commission card!