By Bill Barlow
New Jersey seems poised to join Colorado, California, Massachusetts, and multiple other states in allowing adults to buy, possess and use marijuana without the added paranoia of breaking local laws.
If approved, as many observers expect, the ballot question would clear the way for anyone over 21 to buy taxed and regulated marijuana from state-licensed locations. For now, only those with a doctor’s recommendation can legally buy marijuana in New Jersey.
The question would amend the state constitution.
“That’s the only way it works in New Jersey when you do questions like this,” said Scott Rudder, the president of the New Jersey CannaBusiness Association, one of several groups pushing for a “yes” vote. He argues that creating a new cannabis industry in the state will bring in about $300 million in new taxes each year.
“That’s a pretty conservative number,” he said. It will also mean new jobs and save about $150 million spent each year on enforcing the existing laws, according to Rudder. “It’s going to be significant. It’s going to be a nice boost to the economy.”
Other pro-legalization groups cite civil liberties and issues of fairness, pointing to a disproportionate amount of arrests and convictions for marijuana possession among Black New Jersey residents compared to Whites, despite roughly equal reported use.
“For the vast majority of people who consume marijuana today, the greatest harms associated with their consumption are not health-related,” reads a statement posted by New Jersey United for Marijuana Reform, an umbrella group of organizations favoring legalization. “They are the criminal and civil penalties that can prohibit them from gaining employment, housing or an education in the future.”
Those in opposition paint a far more dire picture of legalization, warning of increased use by young people, more intoxicated driving and marijuana that is far stronger than what the Woodstock generation remembers smoking decades ago.
In addition to the dried flowers of the plant itself, the newly legal pot shops will be able to offer other products as well.
“We’re talking about candies and vaping oil. It’s not just the joint. It’s not just the bong anymore,” said Gregg Edwards, the executive director of “Don’t Let NJ Go To Pot,” an advocacy group formed this year that is calling for residents to vote no.
So far, the campaign has been relatively quiet, aside from some banner planes hired in support of a yes vote spotted over shore towns recently. Legalization advocates have been holding off until after Labor Day, when New Jersey starts to focus more on the election. Edwards says his group does not have the resources to blanket the state, but plans to target the message where he believes it will have the biggest impact.
“Everything we do in terms of paid advertising will be dictated by how much we are able to raise,” Edwards said. That likely rules out a massive ad campaign. “We’d like to, but we can’t. We just don’t have the financial wherewithal.”
The organization is the successor to NJ Responsible Approaches to Marijuana Policy, an affiliate of the national Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which opposes commercial sales of marijuana. That organization had lobbied against legalization in the legislature, but Edwards said it is no longer in existence, with some of the organizers now involved with “Don’t Let NJ Go To Pot.”
“Those of us who were opposed to legalizing recreational pot believed we needed an organization to fight this,” Edwards said.
NJ RAMP still has a website, but its social media presence has been shut down and the posted contact number goes straight to voicemail and to a full mailbox.
With the support of Gov. Phil Murphy and other Democratic leaders, a push to legalize through legislative action narrowly fell short last year, convincing supporters to turn to the voters for the 2020 election.
Like other political campaigns in 2020, the pandemic is having an impact on both sides of the debate, limiting options to reach voters. With most votes now set to be by mail, Edwards said, the campaign is in uncharted waters.
“The whole landscape has changed as a result of the mail-in ballot stuff,” he said. Usually, advocates save their push for ballot questions until just before the election, he said, but this year, it will be difficult to know when people will vote.
Rudder, too, said Covid has changed the process, but he expects a vigorous campaign.
“We’re going out there pretty aggressively,” he said. “People want to see change happen. People recognize that cannabis prohibition has failed. We expect it to pass.”
The numbers appear to be on his side. A poll from Monmouth University this year showed support for legalization at over 60%, and other polls came in with similar numbers. A 2018 poll from the William J. Hughes Center from Public Policy at Stockton University put the split far closer, with a narrow lead to those supporting legalization, but found that a quarter of those responding would try marijuana if it were legal.
Edwards said their internal polling puts the race tighter, and that he wouldn’t be involved if he were only concerned with the polls.
“The question is on the ballot. You have a choice in engaging in this fight or not,” he said.
If the vote is yes, it will still be a while before that one-in-four New Jersey adults have their chance to try legal marijuana. Rudder said it would likely be in mid-2021 before the administrative rules are in place and the first legal sales are ready, with the first likely to be at the existing medical marijuana facilities. There are 12 licensed throughout the state, with 24 more permits in the works.
According to Rudder, the first priority will be to ensure the patients approved for medical marijuana will get their supply before any adult use sales take place.
As Edwards points out, there is nothing about potency or the amount an individual may purchase at one time included in the wording of the referendum. It puts the oversight of the new market in the hands of the state commission that now covers the medical market.
That’s where limits will be put in place, Rudder said, likely following the systems put in place in other states, which could allow the purchase of up to an ounce of marijuana or its equivalent in edibles or tinctures. There will likely be other limits, he said.
For instance, last year, California brought forth new limits on the allowable potency for cannabis edibles, both per serving and per container, and in 2016, Colorado sought to make THC-infused edibles less appealing to children, banning animal or fruit shapes. That was in addition to earlier rules for child-resistant packaging and warning labels.
The ballot question also allows towns to pass an additional tax on sales to help local budgets.
There has been some local opposition to legalization. An Ocean City councilman once said at a meeting he would allow a pot store in the dry town over his dead body, and the Republican leaders in all 21 counties have urged a no vote on the referendum.
Others embrace the possibility of new revenue. Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small has argued that the city should get a bigger slice of the revenue pie if legal cannabis is approved. This summer, he touted an invitation to Snoop Dogg, rapper, actor and the owner of the California-based cannabis company Leafs by Snoop.
Small touted the rapper’s potential investment in Atlantic City, while Snoop Dogg said he would come and cut the ribbon if New Jersey says yes to legalization.
