With New Jersey voters electing U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) to serve as the state\u2019s next governor, there\u2019s now a decidedly clearer path to advancing a marijuana policy reform long awaited by consumers and advocates in the Garden State: A home grow option.<\/p>\n
New Jersey might already have an adult-use cannabis market, but Sherrill replacing Gov. Phil Murphy (R) next year could be a boon for efforts to build upon the voter-approved law in a number of ways.<\/p>\n
Just about a week ahead of the election, Sherrill gave a preview of her cannabis policy priorities<\/a>, which includes preventing youth access to THC products, effectively distributing tax revenue and addressing the lack of a home grow option.<\/p>\n \u201cThe legislature feels as if they haven\u2019t really gotten the law right there. The cannabis companies feel as if the law isn\u2019t right,\u201d Sherrill said in an interview. \u201cSo some of the kind of low-hanging fruit is the THC drinks that are now unregulated and being sold in 7-Elevens, ensuring that young kids don\u2019t have access to cannabis products, making sure we\u2019re doing better enforcement\u2014because I\u2019ve heard from some mayors concerns about, in bodegas, very young kids are getting access to edibles that look like candy, and their parents don\u2019t realize it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt the same time, addressing some of the home grow provisions, which I\u2019m supportive of, and then ensuring that we have better regulations around cannabis, where it can be sold,\u201d she said. \u201cThe reason the cannabis industry wants it is because they want to legitimize their business.\u201d<\/p>\n Sherrill separately said earlier this year that she backs \u201ccommon-sense regulations, safeguards and limits\u201d for medical and recreational home grow, pledging to work with stakeholders such as law enforcement to create a regulatory model that\u2019s implemented in a \u201cthoughtful and safe way.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike most other states that have enacted cannabis legalization, New Jersey continues to prohibit home cultivation for both adults and medical marijuana patients. Murphy, the current governor, has argued on multiple occasions that the state\u2019s adult-use marijuana market needs to further mature before home grow is authorized.<\/p>\n Seemingly contradicting that claim, dozens of New Jersey small marijuana businesses and advocacy groups recently\u00a0called on the legislature to allow adults to cultivate their own cannabis<\/a>.<\/p>\n Chris Goldstein, a New Jersey-based regional organizer for NORML, said in an op-ed for Marijuana Moment last month that it was encouraging to see in Sherrill a candidate who \u201cwholeheartedly supports legalization and has taken several major pro-cannabis actions while serving in Congress.\u201d Her embrace of home cultivation represents a \u201cbig shift for a former federal prosecutor,\u201d he said.<\/a><\/p>\n Meanwhile, asked about her views on the allocation of tax revenue from legal cannabis sales, Sherrill said that, under the current law, \u201csome of the cannabis money was really supposed to go into more provisions ensuring that kids didn\u2019t have access to it,\u201d but \u201cthat hasn\u2019t happened.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to see some of it going where the legislation was saying that it would go to,\u201d she said. \u201cBut then, of course, if we can have more revenue to put into a lot of the programs we want to see statewide, I\u2019d welcome that.\u201d<\/p>\n During her time in Congress, Sherrill in 2019 and 2021 voted in favor of Democratic-led bills to federally legalize marijuana and promote social equity. That legislation\u2014the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act\u2014cleared the House both times, but didn\u2019t advance in the Senate.<\/p>\n Before being elected to Congress in 2018, Sherrill endorsed federal rescheduling of marijuana.<\/p>\n \u201cAs someone running for federal office who also worked as a U.S. attorney, I would like to see [marijuana] taken off the Schedule 1 controlled substances list,\u201d she\u00a0said. \u201cBecause quite frankly, that means there\u2019s no known medical use and it can\u2019t be studied. And we all know that that\u2019s simply not the case. So that\u2019s the first thing that I would like to see happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Additionally, she\u2019s consistently supported the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act to prevent federal regulators from penalizing financial institutions simply for working with state-licensed cannabis businesses.<\/p>\n In 2023, the congresswoman sponsored an amendment to defense legislation to\u00a0expedite the waiver process for military recruits and applicants who admit to prior cannabis use<\/a>\u00a0by allowing the lowest-level defense employees to issue such waivers.<\/p>\n The prior year, Sherrill proposed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to\u00a0eliminate the federal sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine<\/a>.<\/p>\n Another amendment she filed for the 2025 NDAA, which was blocked from floor consideration, would have\u00a0expanded eligibility for expungements of non-violent drug convictions<\/a>\u00a0by removing an age restriction limiting relief to those who were under 21 at the time of the offense.<\/p>\n In House floor votes, the congresswoman in 2019 and 2020 backed amendments to protect all state marijuana programs from federal intervention. In 2022, she voted in favor of legislation to expand medical cannabis research<\/a>\u00a0that was ultimately signed into law by then-President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n This session, meanwhile, the congresswoman filed a bill that would require Elon Musk and other workers at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which Musk has since left,\u00a0to submit to drug testing to maintain their \u201cspecial government employee\u201d status.<\/a><\/p>\n Outside of marijuana, Sherrill joined other bipartisan congressional lawmakers in 2023 in asking leadership to instruct federal health agencies to\u00a0include active duty military service members in psychedelic studies<\/a>.<\/p>\n Curiously, however, she twice voted against amendments from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) that were aimed at removing certain research restrictions for Schedule I drugs, including cannabis and psychedelics.<\/p>\n NORML has given Sherrill an \u201cA\u201d\u00a0grade<\/a>\u00a0in its voter guide.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s not clear the extent to which the marijuana platforms of the two top candidates for New Jersey governor influenced the final vote on Tuesday, the Republican candidate, former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R), opposes legalization and called marijuana a \u201cgateway drug\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n The post New Jersey\u2019s Incoming Governor Supports Legalizing Marijuana Home Cultivation<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
With New Jersey voters electing U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) to serve as the state\u2019s next governor, there\u2019s now a decidedly clearer path to advancing a marijuana policy reform long awaited by consumers and advocates in the Garden State: A home grow option. New Jersey might already have an adult-useContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84161"}],"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\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84162,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84161\/revisions\/84162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: New Jersey\u2019s Incoming Governor Supports Legalizing Marijuana Home Cultivation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"