Committees in both houses of the New Jersey state legislature voted Monday to move forward bills that would legalize and regulate adult-use, recreational marijuana.<\/p>\n
The Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee approved\u00a0S2703<\/a>\u00a0in a 7-4 vote, with two committee members declining to vote, and the Assembly Appropriations Committee approved\u00a0A4497<\/a>\u00a0in a vote of 7-3, with one committee member abstaining.<\/p>\n While the bills would legalize the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana, a pound of edibles, and a quarter ounce of hash for anyone over the age of 21, they do not remove criminal penalties for personal cultivation. But despite the lack of homegrown, we\u2019re still on another planet from the\u00a0Chris Christie era<\/a>.<\/p>\n This new era of NJ pot politics all started with Gov. Phil Murphy\u2019s\u00a0consistent support<\/a>\u00a0for legalization.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In the past, why would state legislators even waste their time on something just pending an eventual veto from Christie, never mind the effort it would take to just get it to his desk?<\/p>\n But in the Murphy era, New Jersey now has a clear path to becoming the first state to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana through the state house \u2014 and it could happen this year. Vermont and Washington, D.C. legislated legalization, but they didn\u2019t actually create a legal market by removing penalties for possession and cultivation. Then again, one might argue New Jersey isn\u2019t the full vision of legalization either, since personal cultivation will remain criminalized. Nevertheless, New Jersey residents will be far better off with access to a legal marketplace, like the voters in the 10 states<\/a>\u00a0who chose to do it themselves.<\/p>\n If both bills make it all the way through to state law, taxes will be set at 12 percent of retail price, and cities and towns would be able to tack on an additional tax of up to 2 percent. Municipalities will also have a ton of control over the licensing process, and while that hasn\u2019t always worked out for access, it\u2019s likely a necessary crutch to push the bills through.<\/p>\n What will the industry look like? New Jersey providers will fall into one of five types of cannabis licenses: growers, product manufacturers, wholesalers, testing facilities and retailers. While the retailers will seemingly take the biggest tax hit, they have a lot going for them, too, like the option to offer delivery and even, for some locations, onsite consumption. This time, Chris Christie won\u2019t be to blame for the traffic as New Yorkers flock to Jersey to chill out and puff.<\/p>\n Advocates hope that with legalization comes some measure of equity for those incarcerated in New Jersey\u2019s prohibition era. In 2016,\u00a0New Jersey arrested 32,000 people for marijuana possession<\/a>, more than any other state besides New York and Texas, both of which are substantially more populated. Only Wyoming had a higher arrest rate for possession.<\/p>\n \u201cNew Jersey is one step closer to replacing marijuana prohibition with sensible regulation. Arresting adult cannabis consumers is a massive waste of law enforcement officials\u2019 time and resources, and it does nothing to improve public health or safety,\u201d says Kate M. Bell, general counsel for the\u00a0Marijuana Policy Project<\/a>. Bell also noted that advocates were working hard to repair the damage done by New Jersey\u2019s current marijuana laws in the process of legalization.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are encouraged by the ongoing discussion about how best to address the history of racially disparate enforcement of marijuana laws,\u201d Bell said in a\u00a0statement<\/a>. \u201cBy streamlining the expungement process, the state can help ensure people with criminal records for marijuana-related offenses get a clean slate. Nobody should be branded a criminal simply for using a substance that is less harmful than alcohol.\u201d<\/p>\n Roseanne Scotti, New Jersey State Director of the\u00a0Drug Policy Alliance<\/a>, also noted on the racial disparity in the enforcement of the state\u2019s pot laws in her official\u00a0statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cToday\u2019s vote is a step in the right direction for New Jersey,\u201d Scotti said. \u201cFor too long, New Jersey\u2019s marijuana laws have harmed families and communities, particularly communities of color. African Americans are three times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than whites despite similar rates of use, and anecdotal evidence suggests similar disparities for Latinos. Legalizing marijuana for adult-use is essential to help repair these wrongs.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/b>\u00a0do you think New Jersey will be the next state to legalize cannabis?<\/p>\n The post New Jersey Legislators Move Cannabis Legalization Bills Forward<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Committees in both houses of the New Jersey state legislature voted Monday to move forward bills that would legalize and regulate adult-use, recreational marijuana. The Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee approved\u00a0S2703\u00a0in a 7-4 vote, with two committee members declining to vote, and the Assembly Appropriations Committee approved\u00a0A4497\u00a0in a vote ofContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,214,592,4069,292,215,81,356],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30890"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30891,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30890\/revisions\/30891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: New Jersey Legislators Move Cannabis Legalization Bills Forward<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"