A bill to create a legal marijuana marketplace in New Jersey is "98 percent" done, with a dispute over tax rates the only major sticking point, one of the state's leading legal weed advocates said.

Scott Rudder, who heads the New Jersey CannaBusiness Association, a trade group of aspiring marijuana growers, cultivators, retailers and related businesses, said the major holdup is whether to impose a 25 percent tax on retail marijuana sales right away, or start with a lower tax rate that escalates to that level over several years.

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Speaking at a conference sponsored by the business newspaper and website NJBIZ, Rudder said he remains optimistic that lawmakers will soon hammer out a deal to make New Jersey the ninth state to allow adults 21 and over to use marijuana for any reason.

“I’m very, very, very confident," Rudder told more than 100 people at a hotel in Somerset. "We have worked out 98 percent of the issues.”

He spoke less than two weeks before Senate President Stephen Sweeney's self-imposed deadline for passing a legal weed bill. Sweeney, a Gloucester Democrat who supports legalization, told reporters last month that he hopes to put a bill on the desk of Gov. Phil Murphy by the end of September.

The date has no legal significance, and lawmakers have missed two other informal deadlines: the end of Murphy's first 100 days in office, in late April, and the passage of a state budget at the end of June. Murphy, who also backs legal weed, had included anticipated revenue from marijuana sales in his budget proposal.

Speaking on the radio call-in program "Ask Governor Murphy" on Monday night, the Democratic governor also expressed optimism about prospects for a marijuana bill.



“I continue to believe it’s this year," Murphy said. "Doing it is important but doing it right is more important and that’s going to be key.”

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Murphy did not take sides in the debate over taxes. At an unrelated event Tuesday in Carteret, he told reporters, “We’ve not hardened a position on taxes."

A bill sponsored by Sweeney and Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, would have imposed a 10 percent tax on marijuana that would have increased to 25 percent over four years. The lower initial rate was intended to stamp out illegal sales by allowing legal businesses to operate profitably. The bill has been shelved in favor of new legislation that has yet to be made public.

At the forum in Somerset, Bill Caruso, a lawyer and lobbyist who was among the founders of the pro-legalization New Jersey United for Marijuana Reform, said the final bill likely will allow communities to levy their own smaller sales taxes on legal cannabis. The tax revenue should sweeten prospects for marijuana stores around the state, Caruso said, noting that many communities have taken steps to ban them.

“They’re going to derive revenue direct to their town, not a pass-through from Trenton," Caruso said. "That’s a game-changer.”

If a marijuana bill passes the Legislature and is signed by Murphy, legal sales are likely months away, pending the creation of rules and regulatory oversight. Advocates have suggested that the state's existing six medical marijuana stores — soon to expand to 12 -- would have the first crack at non-medical sales.