Sorry New Jersey, Legal Weed Will Have to Wait
New Jersey could have been the 11th state to legalize marijuana in America. But politicians in favor of legal weed couldn't get the necessary support, so they canceled a vote on the measure in the state Legislature Monday afternoon, NJ Advance Media reports. Another vote is not expected to be scheduled until after the November elections.
The bill called for the legalization, taxation, and regulation of marijuana, and was said to be the most progressive marijuana legislation presented in the entire country. It was also connected to two other marijuana bills: one to expand the state's medical marijuana program, and another to quickly expunge as many as 200,000 marijuana convictions. NJ Advance Media reports that voting on these measures will also be delayed. With New Jersey's failure to get legalization passed, Vermont remains the only state to have successfully legalized weed through its legislation instead of a public referendum.
New Jersey's politicians have been batting around the issue for a year and a half. It's a fraught one. Despite a Democratic majority in the state legislature, and despite Governor Phil Murphy's 2017 campaign promise to legalize weed, a "yes" vote was far from guaranteed. As recently as last Thursday, Murphy told reporters, "We’re close-we’re not there yet," as he tried to drum up support. On Monday, it became clear he wouldn't get close enough to make a vote go his way.
Murphy and his supporters said legalization would bring a profitable cannabis industry to the state, increase tax revenue, and prevent a disproportional number of black and Latino New Jerseyans from being arrested on marijuana-related charges. But opponents of the bill, who sit on both sides of the aisle, warned that underage use would rise and crime would flourish, or said the bill didn't go far enough to right social injustices.
The bill itself was quite extensive, with 176 pages outlining a potential regulation and taxation system, and detailing multiple criminal justice reforms, which won it the endorsement of the state's ACLU, Politico reported.
New Jersey Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker, who is trying to shepherd a comprehensive marijuana bill through the U.S. Senate right now, gave his support to the effort last week: "All too often, communities of color and low-income individuals are unjustly impacted by our broken drug policies, but by including measures to expunge records and reinvest in the communities most impacted, our state has the opportunity to lead in prioritizing social justice," he said in a statement.
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NJ is set to vote on a marijuana legalization bill that has strong measures to reverse the damage of the War on Drugs.
I hope this bill passes & NJ can lead the nation on this. Marijuana legalization & social justice *must* go hand in hand. We can’t have one without the other.- Sen. Cory Booker (@SenBooker) March 22, 2019
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In New Jersey, six out of 10 residents support legalized weed, according to a recent poll. Despite that support, voters probably won't get a chance to vote on it in a public referendum this year.
And so the green wave sputtered out in Jersey. Now, national attention turns to Capitol Hill and New York, where the next big weed showdowns of 2019 are set to take place.
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