With word coming from Trenton that lawmakers and Gov. Phil Murphy might try again this year to legalize recreational marijuana, state Assemblywoman Serena DiMaso (R-13) this week restated her opposition to the idea.
“I’ve been pretty vocal about it,” she said. “I’m a ‘no’ on the legalization of marijuana.”
The pitch to legalize adult use cannabis in New Jersey includes amends to people who’ve been unfairly or disproportionately harmed by the War on Drugs. Cannabis legalization is coming to New Jersey, it’s a matter of when at this point.
But what about all those people still getting locked us for something that’s legal in other states? And what happens to the criminal records of low-level, non-violent pot offenders once cannabis becomes a multi-billion dollar business here in New Jersey?
As the New Jersey Legislature closed shop for summer recess, thoughts of what could have been on the marijuana legalization effort that stalled flitted among legislators and lawyers.
Why the weed bill failed this year was baffling. Many considered it a slam dunk in a state with a Democratic-controlled Legislature and a Democratic governor who not only supported the measure but made legalizing adult use of marijuana a centerpiece of his gubernatorial campaign in 2017.
The state Senate on Thursday is expected to pass bills that would expand the New Jersey medical marijuana program and overhaul the process of expunging criminal records in the state.
The Jake Honig Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act would make it easier for patients to register, purchase and consume cannabis for medicinal purposes. The bill would raise the monthly limit to 3 ounces per patient, and legalize the manufacture and purchase of edible forms of medical marijuana, including food and oils.
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.
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.
Separate permitting systems
The rules also provide new guidance to the Medicinal Marijuana Review Panel, which advises the state on cannabis policy, and create separate permitting systems for cultivation, manufacturing and dispensing operations in an effort to make more marijuana available to the public and at more locations. Until now, these three aspects of the business were bundled together under a single permitting process.
They don’t have the votes in the senate tonight to legalize recreational marijuana tomorrow but the front office kept leaning to try to extract the 21 votes required to get it done.
They seemed to be stuck at 17 or 18, depending on who you asked, and a source said Senate President Steve Sweeney’s (D-3) people wanted Governor Phil Murphy to bench press the final three or four votes.
It looked grim, as the neophyte governor attempted to button hole upper chamber lawmakers with time ticking down.
His hail mary appeal?
Republicans.
Unfortunately, Bill S10 has fallen victim to the acrimony between Gov. Phil Murphy and state Sen. Steve Sweeney, both of whom are Democrats. Will the governor and senate majority leader play nice for once and pass it into law? Their track record suggests not.
Despite Gov. Murphy’s and Sen. Sweeney’s shared leadership with the state party in power, they’ve accomplished very little in the post-Christie era, thanks in large part to their personal clashes. Sen. Sweeney insists on tethering medical cannabis reform to the larger, more complicated adult-use legalization debate.
Though the bill now awaits a full vote in the state legislature, state Sens. Vin Gopal (D-11) and Declan O’Scanlon (R-13) say they aren’t convinced it’s strong enough to pass in its current form.
“There’s a lot of discussion that has yet to be had and I don’t think the votes are there yet,” O’Scanlon said in a Nov. 27 interview with The Two River Times. “Both sides need to take a breath and focus on getting answers to legitimate concerns and questions and then legislate on those answers, whether those answers perpetuate our beliefs or not.”