As NJ's legal weed push stalls, marijuana opponents gain ground, winning battles in towns

James Nash | NorthJersey

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Emboldened by the failure of New Jersey lawmakers to pass a bill to legalize marijuana, opponents are hitting the measure's main sponsor where it hurts: his own community.

Anti-weed activists are taking aim at state Sen. Nicholas Scutari, a Democrat who has been the Legislature's most visible legalization advocate, with a measure to ban marijuana businesses in Linden, where Scutari lives and works as the municipal prosecutor. The measure gained support at a City Council meeting Tuesday night.

The effort comes as efforts to establish a legal marijuana marketplace in New Jersey falter. A bill that Scutari and Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, introduced June 7 to allow as many as 218 marijuana retailers hasn't gotten a single hearing.

Sweeney, in an interview with The Record and NorthJersey.com on Wednesday, said he hopes a new bill to legalize marijuana will come up for a vote in late September. But it remains unclear how many lawmakers have agreed to vote for it, and negotiations are ongoing as to exactly what legalization would mean in New Jersey, Sweeney said.

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Gov. Phil Murphy backed down from a Jan. 1, 2019, target for legal weed sales after lawmakers failed to pass a bill by June 30, which was the deadline for a state budget. Murphy had hoped to include $60 million in tax revenue from marijuana in his budget.

Even the tenor of public forums has shifted. After a series of workshops by pro-legalization groups this spring, the anti-pot Responsible Approaches to Marijuana Policy drew more than 200 people to an event Aug. 2 at Stockton University at which former Rep. Patrick Kennedy characterized legal weed as a threat to both mental health and a productive workforce.

At the forum, Mary Pat Angelini, a Republican former state lawmaker from Monmouth County, described anti-pot activists as "the little engine that could" because of their success at stalling Murphy's legalization drive. As a candidate last year, Murphy vowed to move quickly on making marijuana legal for anyone 21 and older.

"The fact that we have kept this at bay for so long says something," Angelini said in an interview after the event.

Scutari did not return calls for comment before or after the council meeting Tuesday night.

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Senator Scutari talks about marijuana legislation Senator Scutari talks about marijuana legislation

But other proponents of legal weed in New Jersey insisted that the momentum is on their side and that efforts by Linden and some 30 other communities to ban the drug wouldn't stand in their way. The ordinances would prohibit marijuana retail and production within city limits, in some cases with exceptions for medical use.

New Jerseyans continue to warm to the idea of legal weed, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday. The survey of 908 New Jersey voters said 62 percent support allowing adults to legally possess small amounts of marijuana for personal use, a 3 percent increase since the March 13 poll. But when asked if they would support marijuana sales in their own community, only 50 percent of survey respondents said yes.

"Momentum is clearly going in the direction of legalization — both expanded medical and adult use," said Scott Rudder, a former lawmaker who heads the New Jersey CannaBusiness Association, a trade group of marijuana entrepreneurs. "That said, certainly there are towns that are opting out."

Since Murphy took office in January, the number of people with prescriptions for medical marijuana has nearly doubled to more than 28,000. The governor has expanded the number of conditions that qualify for the drug and lifted some restrictions on purchases while working to double the number of retailers.

But lawmakers have deadlocked on authorizing weed for non-medical use, even as New York inches toward becoming the eighth state to establish a marijuana marketplace. Scutari has introduced three bills this year to legalize marijuana, none of which has come up for a vote.

Meanwhile, opponents have taken the battle to local governments. Linden's ordinance is sponsored by Councilman Peter Brown, a political rival to Scutari who advises the Responsible Approaches to Marijuana Policy organization. The group is headed by Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Stephen Reid, who helped persuade his own Borough Council to adopt an anti-weed ordinance last December.

"If you remember, Phil Murphy said we're going to get this [legalization] done within 100 days," Brown said Tuesday night. "Well, we're past 200 days now and nothing has happened, because problems keep popping up."

Brown and other members of the Linden council argued that marijuana would bring crime and other problems to the Union County city of 42,000, which is located along an NJ Transit line.

In an interview after the council meeting, City Councilwoman Rhashonna Cosby stressed that while Brown "doesn't speak for the entire council," she shares his concern about marijuana retailers attracting undesirable elements.

"This is a minority community, and we don't need more people coming into the community with the potential for crime," she said.

None of the six people who spoke to the Linden City Council on the ordinance advocated allowing marijuana businesses in the city. Concerns included crime, traffic and property values.

Proponents call such concerns overblown, noting that marijuana has been sold on the street for decades.