It’s 2021: Is Marijuana legal in New Jersey – or is that just a pipe dream?

New Year’s Day was the date of what was billed to make marijuana legal in New Jersey that was approved by voters last November.

But there was considerable confusion over the exact legal status of the weed.

The sign Ed Forchion erected over his coffeehouse/pot dispensary in Trenton cleared that up for all to see.

“Grand Opening,” it read. “Marijuana Is Now Legal”

That makes sense to me. If you’re openly selling something and no one stops you, then it must be legal.

It sure looked like that to the first customer to show up on New Year’s Day.

The woman, who was like many other customers an aging baby-boomer, told me she had driven all the way from Atlantic Highlands to buy weed from “the NJ Weedman,” as Forchion calls himself.

“Can’t you find it in Atlantic Highlands?” I asked her.

“I used to get it from two people,” she replied. “But they moved out of state.”

“I’m a hard-working taxpayer,” she added. “I don’t drink. I just like weed.”

A lot of people do, about 2,737,682 if the results of that referendum are any indication. A mere1,343,610 wanted to keep pot illegal.

Yet that woman had to drive all the way to Trenton to find a business openly selling it.

When will she and the 2,737,681 other people who voted for the measure have a chance to buy pot locally?

By now, you should have answered that question. Last month both houses of the Legislature passed the enabling legislation that will implement the amendment.

But Gov. Phil Murphy has put off signing the 240-page bill because of one small omission. Murphy doesn’t like the way the bill would treat marijuana users under age 21. At the moment, there is a dispute over what the proper penalties should be for underage use.

Senators Comments

That’s easily fixed, said the bill’s prime sponsor, state Sen. Nick Scutari. Scutari, a Union County Democrat, told me yesterday that he hopes to see the Legislature and governor get together on an amended bill soon to make marijuana legal in New Jersey for.

“It looks like there will be a supplemental piece of legislation,” Scutari told me. “We could address it by Monday.”

But even then it will be tough for potheads to find pot. The bill states that weed can only be sold in dispensaries approved by a bureaucracy known as the Marijuana Regulatory Commission. But that could take up to 18 months.

The Weedman, who’s been selling weed openly for a while, argues that he and other dealers can sell pot legally in the meantime.

“You wanna sit and wait for a year and a half, you wait,” he told me. “I can read, and the constitutional amendment starts on January First.”

When I ran that by Scutari, he said, “Right now he’s got an argument. I can’t fault anybody because we’re in this grey area.”

We will still be in a grey area after Murphy and the legislators agree on a bill. We will make marijuana legal in New Jersey for residents to smoke pot. But there will be nowhere they can buy it legally.

So where will they get their weed? On the drive to the Weedman’s place, I stopped by a storefront in Trenton with a sign in the window that read, “Moe Weed – Cannabis/CBD/THC Products.” No one answered the door, but the place appeared ready for business.

Distribution Dilemma

Scutari, who’s been working on legalization for 10 years, said he hopes the distribution dilemma can be worked out in short order. He said he hopes dealers like Forchion will be permitted to have licenses. But the quickest way to get the system up and running would be to let the general public access the current medicinal distributors, he said.

I ran that by the state senator who represents that lady from Monmouth County, Republican Declan O’Scanlon. O’Scanlon was in on the committee hearings on the legalization bill but ultimately didn’t vote for it.

“Like everything in Trenton, it’s over-complicated, over-regulated and overtaxed,” O’Scanlon said. “Nobody can decipher that amendment. It puts our law enforcement in no-man’s land.”

Scutari has done his best to sort it out. Now it’s up to the governor to get this system up and running.

But in the meantime the Weedman is just one of many New Jerseyans whose activities are up in the air.

“I think that’s the best place for him to be,” said Scutari. “How do you enforce the law until those regulations get passed?”

That’s Murphy’s problem now.

And that lady from Atlantic Highlands is just one of many who want to see him solve it.

Posted by Paul Mulshine from nj.com on January 5, 2021.

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