New Jersey
New Jersey has danced around the matter of legalization since Gov. Phil Murphy took office in early 2018. And the state has come close.
But lawmakers canceled a March 25 vote on a legalization bill after it became clear that the Senate couldn’t muster the necessary votes. Murphy, however, remains eager to see this bill get through the legislature sometime this month—before dropping his efforts and focusing more closely on expanding the state’s medical cannabis market.
One of the more significant aspects of the bill were its proposals for expedited expungement and reinvestment in communities with disproportionate cannabis arrests rates. Can you further explain how those would work?
AUTHOR: Patrick McKnight
PUBLISHER: CANNABIS LAW REPORT
Plenty of folks don’t support cannabis legalization still in 2019 and that includes quite a few lawmakers from Trenton. But to qualify for this list, the who’s who of prohibition fetishists, you must be emphatically driven to preserve the War on Drugs status quo.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Trenton’s pantheon of pot prohibitionists:
CHRIS CHRISTIE
Wednesday marks the beginning of May, which means there’s only a month to go if state leaders want to realize their latest hope of passing a bill to legalize recreational marijuana in New Jersey before the full frenzy of state budget season rolls around.
So what are the chances a vote will happen over the next 31 days? State Senate President Stephen Sweeney, New Jersey’s highest-ranking state lawmaker, pegs it at “50/50.”
Canopy Growth has spent $300 million on its option to buy Acreage for $3.4 billion, following the triggering event. The terms of Harvest Health’s deal with CannaPharmacy haven’t yet been disclosed.
It should also be noted Ontario-based Canopy received a $4 billion investment last year from Constellation Brands, the Fortune 500 alcohol company which produces Corona and Modelo beers, Svedka vodka as well as Woodbridge and Robert Mondavi wines, among others.
Changing the holdouts' minds by altering the language of the legislation seems unlikely. So, too, does trying to pass any of the three components of the bill separately. That could jeopardize the votes of those whose support for medical marijuana or expungement seemed a justifiable tradeof for pushing the whole package over the finish line.
Additionally, those who have been supporters of the three pillars of the bill may be harboring reservations as more information about the wisdom of one or more of those pillars has emerged over time.
“If we start breaking up this bill, we are creating more disparity and more divisiveness, ensuring nothing productive will occur,” he added. “Medical marijuana patients are just as important as people in our minority communities who have been affected by the so-called War on Drugs. This is a question of equality. We are supposed to be practical. We are supposed to be responsive. And we are supposed to be working toward a fairer New Jersey, right?
Business owners who had hoped last year to be one of the few authorized for growing, selling and delivering medicinal cannabis are biding their time as state lawmakers debate how to proceed.
“We’re still hoping to be licensed,” said Dr. Ira Trocki, chief operating officer of Relevant 1 LLC. Trocki and his business partner, Dr. Jon Regis, formed their medicinal cannabis company before the state Department of Health’s first round of open applications for new alternative therapy centers in July 2018.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has signed three bills into law – two of which are supposed to give students more incentive to pay off their college debts.
But what about the bill that many people have been waiting for – marijuana legalization – and appeared to be on its way toward becoming law until plans were recently scuttled at the last minute?
Three legislative sources told NJ Advance Media that discussions have started on separating the medical and legalization bills and reviewing them separately.