NJ legal weed vote: Marijuana legalization officially placed on 2020 ballot

Mike Davis | Asbury Park Press

TRENTON — New Jersey voters will decide next year if the Garden State will legalize the recreational use of marijuana, after legislators on Monday officially placed an authorizing constitutional amendment on the 2020 ballot.

If voters approve the legal weed ballot question, New Jersey would become the 12th state to legalize recreational weed and — as of now — the first in the Mid-Atlantic region. If it fails, the Legislature will be barred from considering the issue for three years.

“We support any move beyond prohibition,” said Charlana McKeithen, executive director of the state chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "Now marijuana consumers and anyone who supports reform can cast a vote for freedom.”

The ballot resolution was approved 24 to 16 by the Senate and 49 to 24, with one abstention, by the Assembly. Since three-fifths of both houses approved the ballot resolution, the constitutional amendment was automatically placed on the ballot.

Passage by a smaller margin would have required another legislative vote in 2020.

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"It is unconscionable to change the New Jersey constitution to allow the commercial sales of unlimited potency THC products," Dr. Kevin Sabet, president of the leading legal weed opposition group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said in a statement.

Officials for the Marjiuana Policy Project, a cannabis policy think tank, said Monday that legal weed would allow the state to "regulate cannabis to protect workers, communities, and consumers.”

"We are optimistic that 2020 will be the year New Jersey replaces its eight-decade-long experiment with marijuana prohibition with a more thoughtful and humane approach," Karen O’Keefe, the organization's state policies director, said. "Marijuana prohibition has derailed thousands of lives in New Jersey, while driving marijuana production and sales to the sometimes dangerous illicit market."

The legal weed ballot question is birthed out of two years of back-and-forth debate. Gov. Phil Murphy made passing marijuana legalization a campaign issue. Since 2017, a series of bills sponsored by Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, have been introduced and amended in the hopes of legalizing weed through the typical legislative process.

In March, the Legislature came close to passing a legal weed bill. The Assembly secured enough votes to get it done, but Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, would later compare the process to a game of "Whac-a-Mole."

Every proposed amendment would cause some legislators to jump on board or abandon ship, he said.

Last month, Sweeney and Scutari announced that they would instead refocus their efforts on legalizing marijuana through a constitutional amendment. Since then, the process has been a whirlwind. In less than a month, a ballot bill was introduced and passed.

"Legalization is a significant step in public policy that will have a real-life impact on social justice, law enforcement and the lives of people in communities throughout New Jersey,” Sweeney said in a statement. "With the public’s approval, we will be able to move forward to correct social and legal injustices that have had a discriminatory impact on communities of color at the same time marijuana is regulated and made safe and legal for adults."

As written, the ballot question that voters will consider states:

Do you approve amending the Constitution to legalize a controlled form of marijuana called “cannabis”? Only adults at least 21 years of age could use cannabis. The State commission created to oversee the State’s medical cannabis program would also oversee the new, personal use cannabis market. Cannabis products would be subject to the State sales tax. If authorized by the Legislature, a municipality may pass a local ordinance to charge a local tax on cannabis products.

The broad language of the ballot question has led to concern by longtime marijuana legalization activists that key racial and social justice initiatives will be left on the cutting room floor.

The ill-fated legal weed bill — and public statements by Murphy, Sweeney, Scutari and others — made social justice a key focus, unlike most other states where marijuana has been legalized.

“Above anything else, racial and social justice provisions addressing the destruction wrought by the drug war must be at the forefront of any plan to legalize marijuana, and a constitutional amendment — while signaling welcome progress towards legalization —cannot provide that guarantee," said Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.

In New Jersey, an estimated 94 marijuana arrests are made per day, according to the ACLU. And black marijuana users are arrested at nearly three times the rate of white marijuana users, despite similar usage rates.

"During the time it takes to get the question onto the ballot and to pass follow-up legislation to actually establish legalization, New Jersey will make 36,000 more unnecessary arrests per year – all for a substance most New Jerseyans believe should be legal," Sinha said. "We cannot prolong this civil rights crisis any longer.”

Activists lobbied for the bill to include language reserving some marijuana licenses specifically for minorities, programs to ensure those businesses opened in urban areas and "microbusiness" licenses with less expensive requirements.

But as with most ballot questions, the legal weed constitutional amendment left matters vague. Those social justice initiatives will have to be the subject of separate bills or enacted by the Cannabis Regulatory Commission — established earlier this year to oversee the state's medical marijuana program — itself.

As a stopgap, Murphy has called for legislators to pass a bill that would decriminalize marijuana, an effort echoed by legal weed activists. On Monday, the Legislature also sent a bill to Murphy's desk that would change the process for expunging criminal records, specifically marijuana arrests.

The expungement bill would also establish a “clean slate” process to clear a person’s entire criminal history — eventually by an automatic process — and earmark $15 million to implement the expungement reforms

In a statement, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, said "enabling legislation (was) yet to be worked out.

"The time to end the prohibition of adult-use cannabis is now," Coughlin said. "Along with enabling legislation yet to be worked out, New Jersey would become the next state to ensure a safe, highly regulated cannabis industry.

"The decision is now in the hands of the November 2020 electorate."

If New Jersey voters legalize weed, the CRC will oversee the recreational marijuana market, as well. Municipalities will still have the option to pass ordinances banning recreational marijuana sales, but those with such businesses will be allowed to levy a 2% tax.

Seventy-five municipalities have already passed ordinances banning marijuana businesses, said Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Stephen Reid, executive director of New Jersey Responsible Approaches to Marijuana Policy, SAM’s state chapter.

“I think it’s the wrong move. I think it’s bad for New Jersey,” Reid said. “You’re going to have millions of dollars spent in advertising and marketing to talk about how great marijuana is.”

The ballot resolution won support from legislators who were — and remain — against the very concept of marijuana legalization. Sen. Ronald Rice has led much of the Senate Black Caucus, which he chairs, against the move, but said Monday that “if we cannot stop it in (the Senate), the public should at least have the opportunity to vote on it.”

The only Democrats to vote against the bill were Sens. Fred Madden, Shirley Turner and Assembly members John Armato and Paul Moriarty.

Sen. Declan O'Scanlon, R-Monmouth, also voted in favor of the ballot bill. A moderate Republican, he was seen by legal weed activists saw as a swing vote during the initial push to legalize marijuana.

O'Scanlon last month announced he would only support marijuana legalization if voters first approved it.

Mike Davis writes about the seemingly never-ending push to legalize marijuana in New Jersey, including the effects it would have on the economy, the black market and regular people. No, he can't tell you where to buy illegal drugs. Contact him at 732-643-4223, mdavis@gannettnj.com or @byMikeDavis on Twitter.