NJ marijuana legalization: Why NJ cops are the nation's toughest weed enforcers

Ken Serrano , Mike Davis | Asbury Park Press

Marijuana users in New Jersey — which is on the verge of legalizing weed — are arrested at the highest rate in the nation by local police departments, some of which report that more than a third of their arrests were for pot, a USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey investigation found.

There were 32,279 marijuana possession arrests in 2016 — more than murder, rape, assault or any type of theft, according to the latest data available from the FBI's Uniform Criminal Reporting program. The FBI tracks nearly all arrests across the nation.

More than one-third — 36 percent — of the weed possession arrests were of African Americans, although blacks comprise just 13 percent of the state's population. Learn more about who is arrested for marijuana possession in the video below. There was no breakdown in the data on the arrest of Hispanic suspects.

NJ marijuana legalization: Who are NJ cops arresting for weed? The most common marijuana suspect is a 19-year-old white man living in Bergen County, according to the FBI's Uniform Criminal Reporting program. Marijuana possession makes up nearly 11 percent of all arrests in New Jersey.

Statewide, marijuana possession accounted for 10.6 percent of all arrests made by local, state and federal law enforcement officers — about one arrest for every 187 adult residents. It was the highest percentage in the United States, the Network found. The next closest state was South Carolina at 9.9 percent of all arrests.

HIGH HOPES: What NJ can learn from legal weed out West

The Garden State has historically been one of the country's toughest enforcers of marijuana laws, according to a Network review of the FBI data.

And the toughest anti-weed towns are largely the smallest in population.

Consider former Republican Gov. Chris Christie's hometown of Mendham Township, Morris County, population 5,846. In the 18-square-mile town, marijuana possession accounts for nearly two-thirds of the 266 arrests made by police in 2016. The 64 percent pot possession arrest rate is the highest in the state, the Network found.

Officers in nearby Montville, population 21,801, made the same number of arrests but just 27 percent involved marijuana possession.

What do North Jersey police chiefs think about marijuana arrests? Head to NorthJersey.com for their thoughts.

The enforcement also varies from town to town, even in the same county or among neighboring municipalities. Marijuana possession accounted for 20 percent of all arrests in Middletown, Monmouth County, where Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy lives.

But in the neighboring town of Hazlet, marijuana possession was just 8 percent of all arrests in 2016.

Discover how tough your town is on marijuana in our searchable database.

Point Pleasant Beach, a popular Ocean County summer tourism destination with a year-round population of 4,519, was among the first municipalities in the state to preemptively issue a moratorium on marijuana sales if weed is legalized, essentially banning recreational marijuana dispensaries or medical marijuana sellers.

According to its arrest totals, the municipality was the toughest anti-weed town in Ocean County. In 2016, Point Pleasant Beach Police officers arrested 171 people for marijuana possession, about 13 percent of all arrests. Marijuana arrests in Point Pleasant Beach tripled between 2014 and 2016.

Mayor Stephen Reid attributed the increase to community policing after residents reported beachgoers openly smoking marijuana in public.

"People somehow think it's O.K. to smoke. They don't think it's a big deal," said Reid, executive director of New Jersey Responsible Approaches to Marijuana Policy, an advocacy group that opposes New Jersey marijuana legalization.

"They may get away with it in some other town, so they're walking down our streets smoking. They get arrested and don't understand it," he said.

Battle to legalize weed

New Jersey's tough enforcement showed no signs of changing as state lawmakers wrestle with whether to legalize weed for adult use. In fact, marijuana possession arrests increased by over one-third from 2012 to 2016, the FBI data review found.

The largest spike in arrest came after a 2015 state Supreme Court decision made it easier for police to search a vehicle if they smell weed smoke.

According to the FBI arrest information:

New Jersey made the second-highest number of marijuana possession arrests in 2016, behind Texas, which reported 64,200 busts. Texas, though, has nearly three times the population of New Jersey. In terms of efforts, New Jersey outranks the Lone Star state, where just 7.6 percent of all arrests were for pot possession.

Law enforcement officers in New Jersey have made nearly 697,000 arrests for marijuana possession since 1980. Since 2007, weed arrests have increased by nearly 60 percent.

New Jersey State Police officers made 2,908 arrests in 2016, while police at New Jersey colleges and universities made 602 marijuana possession arrests, led by Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

The high rate of arrests "shows we’re putting our resources in the wrong places with regards to law enforcement,” said Freehold criminal defense attorney Richard Lomurro, a trustee to the New Jersey Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “Kids are getting into trouble with a low-level offense that the rest of the country seems to believe shouldn’t handcuff them."

Possession of less than 50 grams — about 2 ounces — of marijuana carries maximum penalties of up to 6 months in prison and a $1,000 fine at the municipal court level, but first-time offenders are eligible for a one-time-only conditional discharge. If a defendant stays out of trouble, usually for a year, and passes two drug tests, the marijuana charge is dropped through the conditional discharge process.

Possession of more than 50 grams of marijuana, a fourth-degree crime, comes with a maximum 18-month prison sentence and a $25,000 fine.

MORE: How NJ's municipal courts became a cash cow

Marijuana possession is also one of only a few ways for police to crack down on drugged driving. Without a weed-specific version of an alcohol breath test, police can't objectively prove that a driver was high behind the wheel.

They can charge a driver with driving under the influence of drugs — which comes with a 7- to 12-month driver's license suspension — but a conviction requires additional proof — such as finding marijuana in the vehicle, Lomurro said.

Gov. Phil Murphy has vowed to bring legal weed to New Jersey by the end of the year, though progress largely stalled during this summer's budget talks in the Legislature.

Raw Video: Police Search Man's Anus, Genitals for Weed WARNING: Extremely graphic content and language. COURTESY: John Paff/NJ Open Government Notes. Raw bodycam footage of NJ State Police searching a man's anus and genitals for weed after a traffic stop.

Last week, Attorney General Gurbir Grewal called for a pause in marijuana possession prosecutions in municipal court until Sept. 4, during which time he is convening a working group to discuss an indefinite hold.

One reason for New Jersey’s high number of arrests may be the high number of police per capita. New Jersey frequently ranks among the top states. According to a 2016 report from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, New Jersey had the fourth highest number of officers per capita in the country in 2012, the most recent figures available.

There are also more than 500 local police departments in the state, plus State Police, campus police and other law enforcement agencies.

Why are South Jersey cops making more possession arrests? Check out CourierPostOnline.com for their perspective.

Unprecedented spike

Arresting people for marijuana possession was much different in the past. In the early 1990s, officers in both Texas and New Jersey arrested about half as many suspects as they did in 2016.

In the early 1990s, New Jersey was routinely in the top three in the nation for percent of weed arrests, compared to all arrests.

In recent years, New Jersey’s marijuana possession arrest figures have remained high. In 2015, the state had the third-highest number of weed possession arrests and the third-greatest percentage of possession busts compared to all arrests.

But in 2016, there was an unprecedented spike of more than 30 percent. Before that, the year-over-year change was about 3 percent.

Attorneys, police officers and law enforcement officials interviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey have attributed the increase to the state Supreme Court's 2015 ruling in New Jersey v. Pena-Flores, which said that probable cause — not a search warrant — was the only thing needed by police officers to search a vehicle.

That probable cause includes the smell of burning marijuana.

FLASHBACK: NJ Supreme Court rules cops only need probable cause for searches

"It’s a change of incredible consequence for all drivers in New Jersey,” Lomurro said. “All any officer needs to search your car is to smell marijuana to find something else — like a gun or a substantial amount of drugs.

"But if they don't find anything else? That marijuana charge still sticks," he said.

Brielle Police Chief Michael Palmer, president of the Monmouth County Chiefs of Police Association, mentioned the Pena-Flores ruling when asked about the sudden rise in pot arrests.

"It's a lot easier now" to make marijuana possession arrests, Palmer said.

Marijuana arrests each year in Brielle have numbered between two to 67 since 2000 in the town of 4,700. The busts rose from 10 in 2015 to 33 in 2016.

What towns at the Jersey Shore are toughest on marijuana? Check out the list here!

He added that marijuana users might be getting more comfortable with carrying marijuana now with the talk of legalization.

Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden said the increase in marijuana arrests could come from police departments dedicating more resources not toward marijuana enforcement, but toward opioid abuse.

“There’s more of a presence on the streets. The (motor vehicle) stops are probably in search of heroin and fentanyl and opioids," Golden said. "That’s the real crisis we have going on.”

Of the 5,308 drug arrests made by Monmouth County local police officers in 2016, only 225 were for narcotics other than marijuana or cocaine.

Lomurro has seen an uptick in his marijuana cases since the Pena-Flores decision, with an estimated 90 percent of his marijuana clients arrested during a motor vehicle stop.

Xavier, 19, who didn't want his last name used, said he was arrested twice for marijuana possession last year — once in a friend's car in Seaside Heights and another while smoking in his hometown of Old Bridge. The Old Bridge charge was dismissed, but the Seaside Heights charge — possession of less than 50 grams of marijuana — stuck onto his arrest record.

In addition to the Seaside Heights arrest, Xavier has been stopped while driving his own car three or four times over the last year. He said his Puerto Rican heritage and African American ethnicity means he's "definitely black," which he claims routinely makes him a target for police officers looking for a weed bust.

During one recent motor vehicle stop for speeding in Old Bridge, an officer "came right up to the car and said, ‘I smell marijuana,’” Xavier said.

Why are marijuana arrest rates spiking in central Jersey? Head to MyCentralJersey.com to find out!

That was impossible, Xavier said. He never smokes in his own car, because the smell would linger on the upholstery.

“He checked my car 10 times and didn’t find anything," Xavier said. "It was kind of embarrassing.” He was charged with not having proper registration documents.

While Pena-Flores was a common refrain among the attorneys and prosecutors interviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey, it’s not the only theory floated.

Marijuana Policy Project senior counsel Kate Bell, who studies New Jersey, said police departments often turn to marijuana arrests as an easy way to justify overtime and grant funding: “There are so many marijuana consumers, despite the fact that it’s illegal in New Jersey and many other states,” she said.

And cultural attitudes have continued to change about marijuana. Most New Jersey and national polls put legal weed support in the 60 percent range, while nine other states have already legalized marijuana.

Legal weed changed Colorado. Is NJ marijuana legalization next? California and Colorado were two of the first States to legalize recreational marijuana. The USA TODAY Network New Jersey traveled West to see how legal weed could impact New Jersey.

Public support, spurred by legalization laws passing in nine other states, has led to a growing cultural acceptance of marijuana, Red Bank criminal defense attorney Rory Wells said.

“In the past, you’d have one group of kids considered the potheads — but nowadays, you have athletes that are very well-trained and feel invincible, you have have kids in AP classes, smarter kids," Wells said. “Part of it is the anticipation of the law changing, and dealing with fighting back the cultural acceptance of marijuana."

LEGAL WEED: Is marijuana going mainstream?

What is FBI data?

Participating in the FBI's UCR program is mandatory for 34 states, including New Jersey, and voluntarily submitted by the rest of law enforcement agencies across the country, said Passaic County Community College criminologist Michael Walker, who retired after 32 years as an officer and police director in Paterson.

The FBI data serves as an estimate, since offenses in about 15 percent of the country’s population were not tallied 2016.

Florida, Washington, D.C., and most of Illinois' law enforcement agencies do not participate in the UCR program and more than 40 percent of New York’s population is not counted — which is significant, since New York usually figures high in arrests. Other states, like Vermont, also send statistics for only part of the state.

When Florida last participated in the mid-1990s, it far surpassed New Jersey in the number of marijuana arrests — as did New York, when nearly all of the state took part in the FBI program.

INVESTIGATION: Your tax dollars helped keep bad cops on the streets

California, which legalized medical marijuana in 1996 and recreational marijuana in 2016, was also a top enforcer in the 1990s. However, in 2016, the state ranked second lowest in terms of how much effort police put into arresting marijuana suspects. Just 6,100 weed arrests were made out of 1.1 million total arrests.

The New Jersey marijuana legalization bills in the Legislature would allow people to carry up to one ounce of legal weed and allow previous offenders to expunge marijuana possession charges of less than 50 grams from their criminal record.

Marijuana cases under 50 grams are handled in municipal courts. Marijuana possession arrests of more than 50 grams and charges of sale or distribution are felonies, which are handled in Superior Court.

Catching stoned drivers is tougher than you think Stoned driving enforcement is a serious challenge for cops. Even in California, where weed is legal, relatively few officers are trained to detect it.

Despite making more than 32,000 marijuana possession arrests in 2016, police officers made 3,441 arrests for marijuana sales, the third-most in the country, the FBI data showed.

The growing marijuana arrest totals show that many New Jersey police departments practice “broken windows policing,” the theory that the arrest and punishment of low-level offenders will prevent more serious crime, said Dianna Houenou, American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey policy counsel.

“All it does is throw people into the criminal justice system, and doesn’t adequately protect public safety or address serious offenses,” she said.

Toughest towns

The toughest towns on marijuana have one common thread: Traffic.

In Passaic, a major stretch of Route 21 brings motorists to and from Route 3, with easy access to the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike. And in 2016, city police officers made 436 marijuana possession arrests, the most by an individual police department in the state — an increase of 73 percent from 2015.

Officers in Hackensack, with Interstate 80 and Route 4, made 416 marijuana arrests.

Newark, the transportation hub of the state, was home to 414 marijuana arrests.

But the simple presence of a major highway is not an indicator of a high rate of marijuana possession arrest rates: Police in Tinton Falls, which contains portions of Route 18 and the Garden State Parkway, made just 21 weed busts last year. East Rutherford Police only made nine marijuana arrests, despite major sections of Route 3 and Route 17 running through the town.

Between 2015 and 2016, when the search law changed, more than 100 New Jersey towns saw their marijuana possession arrests at least double. In 18 towns, the arrests tripled or more — such as Franklin Township in Hunterdon County, which went from 24 to 101 marijuana possession arrests, an increase of nearly 321 percent.

At the Shore, the toughest town on weed is Wall Township, where Route 18, Interstate 195, Route 34, and Route 35 all converge. In 2016, police officers made 407 marijuana possession arrests. In 2015, officers made just 212 arrests in Wall.

That's a 92 percent jump.

Wall Police Chief Kenneth Brown did not return messages seeking comment.

In Holmdel, police arrested 109 people for marijuana possession, a 109 percent increase over 2015. Howell Police officers made 325 arrests and Asbury Park officers made 274 arrests.

The Network also analyzed marijuana possession arrests per capita, which scales arrests per 100,000 residents, measuring cities with high and low populations on an even basis.

Of the 10 towns with the most marijuana arrests per capita, six — Loch Arbour, Harvey Cedars, Deal, Wildwood, Point Pleasant Beach and West Wildwood — are small Jersey Shore communities.

Public officials in many of those towns have expressed vocal opposition to the New Jersey marijuana legalization efforts championed by Murphy and state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester.

MORE: Latest legal weed bill would open 218 marijuana dispensaries in New Jersey

Small marijuana possession charges largely begin and end at the municipal level — which allows for hundreds of "different possibilities on how we enforce our law,” Houneou said.

“There are disparities in how police prioritize what offenses they spend their resources on, where they decide to patrol and who they decide to stop, search and arrest,” she said. “We have discretion at the prosecutorial level, where the prosecutor gets to decide what charges they’ll actually pursue.

"These are all opportunities for bias to seep in, especially if we feel that marijuana possession is low-hanging fruit.”

This is a USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey investigation.

Mike Davis; @byMikeDavis: 732-643-4223; mdavis@gannettnj.com

Ken Serrano; @KenSerranoAPP; 732-643-4029; kserrano@gannettnj.com