With less than three weeks before their latest self-imposed deadline for passing a legal marijuana bill, New Jersey lawmakers were meeting to discuss legislation that would tax the drug at 12 percent, expunge past marijuana convictions and establish no limit on the number of marijuana retailers.

The Democratic caucuses of the Senate and Assembly convened Tuesday morning for a briefing on the latest version of bills that would expand New Jersey's medical marijuana program and allow anyone 21 and older to buy and consume the drug.

The meetings come ahead of Senate President Stephen Sweeney's latest deadline to pass a legal weed bill, which has been delayed much of this year over disputes on the tax rate, how to handle old criminal convictions for buying and selling marijuana and how to regulate an industry that could grow to several hundred stores. Sweeney told reporters last month that he intended to hold a vote Oct. 29.

The bill, however, remains a moving target. Lawmakers and advocates say they've reached agreements on many key provisions of legal marijuana, such as deferring a decision on the number of marijuana stores to a regulatory commission.

Other provisions have eluded lawmakers and Gov. Phil Murphy, who supports legalization but has largely been on the sidelines in legislative deliberations. Most lawmakers favored a tax rate as low as 10 percent, while Murphy's administration set a target of 25 percent. A draft of the bill in September set the initial tax rate at 10 percent, escalating to 25 percent after four years. The latest draft, dated Oct. 4, sets the rate at a flat 12 percent.

The bill also would allow municipalities to levy their own local taxes of up to 2 percent, which could help defray costs for additional drug-recognition training for police and make the marijuana business more attractive to local officials. Several communities already have passed ordinances to ban marijuana businesses within their borders.

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"Ultimately there will be a meeting of the minds," Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, said Tuesday after leaving the closed-door session with fellow lawmakers.

"You'll probably find a diversity of opinion on the adult-use bill," he said, referring to the legislation to allow marijuana for non-medical purposes. "It's a little controversial — just a little."

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Raised voices and the pounding of a gavel could be heard outside the two-hour caucus meeting.

"We had a really lively conversation," Sweeney said afterward, declining to discuss specifics. "People are passionate on both sides of the issue."

He continued to express hope for a vote by Oct. 29, but not all of his fellow Democrats were as sanguine. Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, the main sponsor of the legalization bill, said the timing was less important than passing the right bill. He noted that lawmakers continue to debate the best approach for wiping out past marijuana offenses.

Vitale sponsored a bill to broaden access to marijuana for medical purposes, which the state continues to do under Murphy. More than 32,000 people now have access to marijuana for medical purposes, more than double the number when Murphy took office in January.

The latest version of the non-medical bill would allow people convicted of minor marijuana offenses to file a petition to expunge those convictions, but it would not automatically wipe them out. It also sets up a process to expedite expungements in certain cases. Scutari said lawmakers continue to discuss ways to waive the normal fees that accompany expungement requests.

On the Assembly side, lawmakers continued to meet into the early afternoon.

Budget chair Eliana Pintor Marin said Assembly members were discussing the same issues as their Senate peers.

Pintor Marin, D-Essex, did not offer any specifics on the bill or the discussions.

So far, she said, “it’s been a really good conversation. Some people were surprised by the content that was in there - how thoughtful it was and how far-reaching it is. So people are in a good place, I think, for our first conversation.”

— Staff writer Dustin Racioppi contributed to this report.

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