NEW JERSEY—This state may become the 12th nationwide to legalize marijuana—but not until November 2020, when the state’s voters will decide the issue after legislators abandoned efforts during a lame-duck session to approve the issue after two years of political wrangling.
While some top political leaders held out hope of passage—including Gov. Phil Murphy—the state Senate, which fell a few votes short of passage in March, again was reported to lack a majority in favor of recreational marijuana.
That leaves the highly contentious issue in voters’ hands during a 2020 presidential election race likely to result in heavy voter turnout due to intense interest in President Donald Trump’s reelection bid.
On Nov. 18, State Senate President Democrat Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and Democratic state Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union), the legalization bill’s sponsor, said there still weren’t enough votes to pass the legislation in the Senate, though Assembly backers said it could pass the Assembly.
Twenty-one votes are needed for passage in the 40-member Senate and 41 in the 80-member Assembly.
A constitutional amendment
Both senators introduced a resolution to place a question on the November 2020 ballot, asking New Jersey voters to amend the state constitution to permit adults 21 or older to use recreational marijuana.
Should the ballot referendum pass in November 2020, regulations governing retail sales may take another six to 12 months or more, based on other states’ experience.
The Senate and Assembly still need to approve a referendum to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to make recreational marijuana legal.
A three-fifth’s majority is needed in both chambers or a simple majority in two consecutive years. The latter would require a vote before Jan. 1 and in 2020, said officials.
The ballot question asks voters to approve the state commission that currently oversees the medical marijuana program to regulate legal cannabis.
No new taxes
Moreover, the ballot question imposes only the current New Jersey sales tax rate on recreational cannabis—6.625 percent, rather than a previously proposed $42-an-ounce tax, plus additional taxes municipalities could impose.
All those additional taxes— which a statewide municipal officials’ organization fought for—are missing from the ballot question.
“This initiative will bring cannabis out of the underground so that it can be controlled to ensure a safe product, strictly regulated to limit use to adults and have sales subjected to the sales tax,” Sweeney and Scutari said. “We are confident it will be approved by the Senate, the Assembly, and the voters.”
Both said referendum approval would lead to “the creation of a system that allows adults to purchase and use marijuana for recreational purposes in a responsible way.”
Earlier this year in March— prior to New Jersey’s first attempt to legalize marijuana—Republican state Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi (D-39) and Democratic state Sen. Ron Rice (D-28) joined forces to call for a referendum on legalization.
Both opposed legalization—for different reasons—and said the delay would provide more time to “educate” voters on what legalization means.
‘Become educated’
“Right now, they’re just hearing soundbites,” said Schepisi in March. “Let’s allow the public to become educated before they make a determination of whether or not this is what they really want,” she said then.
If a referendum measure is approved soon, that allows nearly a year delay before a referendum vote, with public debate to continue over legalization’s pros and cons.
Prior to Nov. 18, Gov. Murphy, along with most Democratic leaders in the state Assembly and Senate, opposed putting adult-use legalization up for referendum hoping to pass a more comprehensive legislative bill governing and licensing legal marijuana enterprises.
The original legalization bill ran nearly 200 pages.
Moreover, Michael Cerra, deputy executive director of the state League of Municipalities, a statewide advocacy organization for local governments, had long advocated for a 5% municipal tax on local cannabis retail sales.
However, the bill previously considered fell short, instead offering only a 3 percent tax on retail sales, 2 percent on sale receipts from a local grower, cultivator or processor, and 1 percent of sales from a local cannabis wholesaler.
Recently, Cerra told Northern Valley Press that he anticipated most Bergen County towns to opt-out of local retail sales had legalization passed during lame-duck session.
Every public official and police chief in 22 towns in our coverage area opposes local retail sales.
Only Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes said he had been approached by cannabis entrepreneurs to possibly consider placement of a cultivation or processing facility.
However, no proposals or discussion of any cannabis-related enterprise has occurred at City Council meetings.
Last week, many local officials attended the state League of Municipalities conference Nov. 19-21 in Atlantic City, and the Nov. 18 decision to propose a ballot question amending the state Constitution to legalize adult-use marijuana was surely a hot topic among officials.
At least one panel discussion on cannabis was on the well-attended conference’s agenda.
‘Do you approve’?
The proposed ballot question reads:
“Do you approve amending the Constitution to legalize a controlled form of marijuana called ‘cannabis’? Only adults at least 21 years of age could use cannabis. The State Commission created to oversee the state’s medical cannabis program would also oversee the new, personal use cannabis market. Retail sales of cannabis products in this new market would be subject to the State’s sales tax, and no other form of tax.”
The ballot question leaves out all language related to possible decriminalization of pot possession and expungement of previous low-level marijuana arrests—both topics long debated and likely to be addressed by the Cannabis Regulatory Commission or separate legislation in the future.
One issue already raising concern to Rice is the wording used in the ballot question.
Reached Nov. 21, Rice said the ballot question must be clearly worded so New Jersey residents of all races, ethnicities and ages understand what it means and know what they are voting for or against.
He said many people do not know that cannabis means marijuana—including senior residents and some in communities of color.
Rice said once a ballot question is made clear and straightforward to all potential voters by using easily understood language, “what happens then is [we] have to educate the public on its pros and cons” before the vote.
Although opposed to legalization, he said should a bill pass, then the process of legislators working together to craft a bipartisan bill that incorporates economic justice and equity for minority business needs to occur.
Social justice concerns?
Social justice advocates, including Gov. Murphy, had hoped to originally pass companion bills on decriminalization and expungement via legislation but Senate Democratic leaders could not muster the necessary votes.
Despite last-minute arm-twisting, Sens. Sweeney and Scutari said they could not sway enough senators to approve a legalization bill.
The Cannabis Regulatory Commission, which currently oversees the state medical marijuana program, could take over regulations and vetting/issuing of cannabis retail licenses under the proposed constitutional amendment.
Murphy reacted swiftly to the ballot measure’s introduction.
‘600 people…jailed weekly’
“I am disappointed that we are not able to get this done legislatively and that our failed status quo—which sends roughly 600 people to jail a week for possession, the majority of them people of color—will continue,” he said in a statement.
“However, I have faith that the people of New Jersey will put us on the right side of history when they vote next November. By approving this ballot measure before the end of this legislative session, New Jersey will move one step closer to righting a historical wrong and achieving what I have spent more than three years advocating for,” added Murphy.
Over the last week, the American Civil Liberties Union released a report detailing the disproportionate arrest rate—almost three times as high—for African Americans versus white residents for low-level pot possession.
The report noted nationwide one person is arrested every 14 minutes for a marijuana-related offense.
Last year, a nationwide survey found marijuana arrests comprised 10 percent of all arrests, with New Jersey police topping the country in pot-related arrests.
Local medical marijuana?
Meanwhile, Democratic state Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-37), realizing the difficulty being experienced by medical marijuana
dispensaries in getting local zoning approvals to operate, proposed legislation to make a medical cannabis shop a “permitted use” under the state’s Municipal Land Use Law.
The bill has not been officially introduced or scheduled for a vote.
None of six medical dispensaries approved over a year ago by New Jersey’s health department has yet opened due to local zoning decisions, according to a published report.
Johnson stressed “this does not prevent” municipalities from prohibiting or restricting medical cannabis facilities based on local zoning.
Many local officials fear a potential for a medical dispensary to add recreational marijuana to its location if and when marijuana legalization occurs.
Efforts to reach Schepisi, Cerrra, and Johnson for further comment were not returned by press time. a
