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With Monday’s vote to legalize marijuana in New Jersey looming, Gov. Phil Murphy made an impassioned appeal to undecided state lawmakers on Thursday, saying that voting yes will deliver a civil rights victory to black and Latinos who have been unjustly targeted in the war on drugs.

The bill scheduled for a vote in the state Senate and Assembly in four days include provisions that would expedite the expungements of marijuana possession and minor distribution offenses for as many as 200,000 people in the Garden State, Murphy said. Blacks are three times more likely to be arrested and convicted than whites, although they consume marijuana at about the same rate.

“To all of you out there wondering, ‘Where should I be on this,’ let me just say this: We have a chance — one chance — to protect our kids," Murphy said, standing among 13 minority religious, business and community leaders during a news conference outside his office in Trenton.

“We have one chance to drive the bad guys out of this business,” the Democratic governor added. "We have one chance to regulate it ourselves, with the right leadership. We have once to undo extraordinary social injustices that have built up over decades in a way that no state … in the history of our republic has ever done.”

“The day is Monday. The time is now. We must achieve success,” Murphy said.

Rev. Charles Boyer, pastor of Bethel AME Church in Woodbury, said the law would go a long way to ending mass incarceration, a goal of Salvation and Social Justice, an advocacy organization he founded.

“New Jersey has the opportunity to set captives free — from prison, probation, parole and a life stigmatized and shackled by criminal records," Boyer said.

“Without our collective campaign and the leadership of this governor, this would merely be an industry bill for young white men" who are snapping up jobs in the cannabis industry, he added.

But for people with criminal records because of marijuana, “this is real liberation and this is real transformation,” Boyer said.

The NAACP of New Jersey has advocated for legalizing marijuana for six years, said its president, Richard Smith, but not because it wants people to consume cannabis.

“Let’s put it behind the counter where it can be regulated,” Smith said. And to opponents who call it a “gateway drug,” Smith said he would agree that it’s been “a gateway drug to jail if you are black and brown.”

Smith predicted the law “would change the trajectory of thousands of lives.”

The bill would legalize recreational marijuana for people 21 and older in New Jersey.

Democratic leaders and legal cannabis supporters familiar with private negotiations around the measure say getting 21 yes votes out of the 40-member Senate remains a hard sell.

The not-so-subtle arm-twisting is state complicated because some of legal marijuana’s most vocal opponents are African-American. They include state Sen. Ronald Rice, D-Essex, a former police officer who unsuccessfully advocated for a bill that would decriminalize small amounts of pot.

“I’m an optimist. We are not there yet, though," Murphy said. "We have to move a number of chess pieces still in both the Assembly and the Senate. And it’s gonna take all of us collectively to do that.”

Rev. Steffie Bartley, pastor for New Hope Memorial Baptist Church in Elizabeth, directed his comments to lawmakers “on the fence."

“Please, get on the right side...so that we can make history, so our young men and young women can get on with their lives. It all depends on that vote Monday,” Bartley said.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Brent Johnson contributed to this report.

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

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