New Jersey Senate Passes Medical Cannabis Expansion Bill
Gov. Phil Murphy is expected to sign the legislation.
The New Jersey Senate voted 33-4 to considerably expand the state’s medical cannabis program on Thursday.
The Jake Honig Compassionate Use Medical Cannabis Act would expand the list of qualifying conditions for medical cannabis use, and increase the possession limit to three ounces per month in dried form. The bill transfers oversight of the medical cannabis program from the Department of Health to a yet-to-be established Cannabis Regulatory Commission (CRC).
“I’ve seen first-hand how much better certain individuals do on medical cannabis than they do on opioids and many times doctors prescribe opioids under our current law because it’s just so much easier,” said Sen. Nicholas Scutari, a longtime cannabis supporter and major player in the state’s
failed push to legalize cannabis for adult use. “This bill attempts to circumvent that, and make it much more streamlined, so it is treated more as a mainstream medication.”
The bill also allows medical cannabis dispensaries to have consumption areas on their premises, if the municipality in which they are located and the CRC both approve. This would provide patients living in public housing, federally-funded nursing homes, and on college campuses, or those who depend on federal housing subsidies, spaces where they could legally consume medical cannabis. (Read
Cannabis Wire’s coverage of how some federally subsidized tenants are forced to choose between their medicine and their home.)
However, there was criticism from some lawmakers, especially concerning the sales tax on medical cannabis.
“To add sales tax to medical marijuana is a crime,” said Sen. Robert Singer. “It is medical marijuana for a reason. It helps people. And we should not make a profit in helping people.”
But Scutari defended the decision to not remove the sales tax.
“The state of New Jersey incurs substantial costs with the administration of this program because, although its medicine, it’s not the same,” Scutari said. “It doesn’t fall into the same regulations of the FDA so the state has to take on a lot of the responsibilities the federal government normally would.”
Sen. Nia Gill took issue with a provision in the bill that allows an investor to bypass a background check if they hold an interest of five percent or less in a medical cannabis operation.
“So you can have one person having multiple interest of five or less in multiple companies at all levels and they don’t need a background check,” Gill said. “But, of course, some poor Joe who may have had an incident and has a record and has a background check could not even be employed in a dispensary.”
The Senate also added an amendment that allows employees in the medical cannabis industry to unionize. Hence, the bill will go back to the Assembly for a vote before heading to Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk to be signed into a law.
The Senate was expected to also vote on a bill that includes an expedited expungement process for cannabis-related convictions. However, Senate President Stephen Sweeney said a drafting error required the bill to be rewritten. It will now go to vote on June 10.
NJ medical marijuana expansion moves forward, no expungement vote due to 'error'
TRENTON - After years of pushing from activists frustrated with New Jersey's limited medical marijuana program, lawmakers agreed Thursday to make it easier
for patients to register and to purchase and consume cannabis for medicinal purposes.
The Jake Honig Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, which passed the Senate by a 33-4 vote, would raise the monthly limit to 3 ounces per patient and legalize the manufacture and purchase of edible forms of medical marijuana, including food and oils.
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Higher Grade dispensary offers fine cannabis for medicinal purposes. Denver, CO on Friday, April 13, 2018 (Photo: Doug Hood )
The Assembly passed the bill last week by a 65-5 vote but will have to vote again due to a last-minute amendment on the Senate floor that would require cannabis businesses to allow workers to unionize.
If the Assembly approves that amendment, it will head to Gov. Phil Murphy's desk. But he does not seem willing to wait around.
Murphy is planning to take executive action within days to “drastically” expand the medical program, according to a person familiar with the administration’s plans.
"There are things that I'd change about this bill, but this is a big breakthrough. We had to do these things legislatively. Increasing the amount of product people can get, increasing access points and the number of growers, will dramatically increase access for the very sick people who need it," bill sponsor Sen. Declan O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth, said last week when the bill cleared the Senate health committee.
MORE: Everything you need to know about the big changes coming to NJ medical marijuana
The Honig Act also removes the requirement for doctors to
maintain a "bona fide" relationship with their patients before referring them to the medical marijuana program, allowing them to recommend medical marijuana as they would any other treatment option.
Under current law, most doctors meet with patients multiple times — each appointment costing potentially hundreds of dollars and
not covered by health insurance — before referring them.
The bill would also remove the state sales tax on medical marijuana purchases in 2025, though patients would still be subject to a
2 percent local "transfer tax" levied by municipalities that host dispensaries.
The medical marijuana legislation also includes numerous aspects of the ill-fated legal weed bill, including:
- Home delivery to medical marijuana patients by a dispensary or third-party vendor
- Cannabis consumption areas at dispensaries, with approval from local governments
- Microbusiness permits, for cannabis businesses with fewer than 10 employees, and restrictions on size and operation
The Senate declined to vote on an expungement reform bill, which would make
more crimes eligible for expungement, create an "e-filing" system for expungement petitions and a "clean slate" program to wipe away an offender's entire criminal record if the person goes 10 years without an offense.
Senate President Steve Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said Thursday that the bill was held due to a "drafting error." It has yet to receive a vote in the full Assembly.
Until earlier this month, both bills had been linked to a
proposal to legalize marijuana in New Jersey as a way to get on-the-fence legislators to vote in favor of legal weed.
But Sweeney announced this month that
marijuana legalization would be pushed to the 2020 ballot, freeing up both accompanying bills to go up on their own.
Join "Let's Talk About Marijuana," our Facebook group dedicated to all things about marijuana legalization in New Jersey, including legal weed, medical cannabis and what it means for your community.
Since the medical marijuana bill was introduced, legislators have
instituted a 23-permit cap on the number of cultivators licensed to grow the drug, which activists have said would prevent the program from flourishing.
O'Scanlon said the Cannabis Regulatory Commission — a new regulatory body that would oversee the medical marijuana program — could add new dispensaries if there is more need.
"Those growers and processors ought to be able to service more than one dispensary," he said. "I think we can get there under this legislation."
The most recent version of the bill keeps the sales tax in effect until 2025, instead of phasing it out over the next five years, as previous versions called for. But the addition of a transfer tax is new.
RELATED: This NJ family moved to Colorado for easier access to medical marijuana. And they're never coming back.
Instead of making medical marijuana completely tax-free, patients will keep paying the 2 percent tax. That tax could be levied by municipalities immediately after the bill becomes law.
“To add sales tax to medical marijuana is a crime," said Sen. Robert Singer, R-Ocean, who attempted to table the vote until the tax language could be removed. "How dare we use the term ‘medical’ and charge poor people and working people and families sales tax on something that helps them feel better. It is outrageous. It’s wrong."
Bill sponsor Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, defended the sales tax, arguing that the state would be taking on a lot of administrative costs that the federal government can’t touch, since marijuana is still illegal on the federal level.
N.J. still arrests more people for pot than almost any other state. A lot more.
As
Phil Murphy swept the governor’s race in 2017 on a promise to legalize marijuana and clear pot convictions, New Jersey was arresting tens of thousands of people for marijuana offenses.
Police in the state arrested 34,501 people for marijuana possession and 3,122 people for pot sales in 2017, according to
recently released FBI data. That’s 2,500 more arrests for weed than in 2016. Texas and New York were the only states who arrested more people for marijuana possession than New Jersey in 2017.
The arrest rate increased as well. About 38 in every 10,000 residents were arrested for pot possession in 2017, compared with 35 per 10,000 in 2016. That rate is more than double the national average, according to analysis done by NJ Advance Media. Only Wyoming and South Dakota had a higher marijuana arrest rate than New Jersey.
The arrest numbers were released at a time when New Jersey state lawmakers are having serious discussions about marijuana reform. Legislators, having
dropped legalization for the time being, will soon vote to allow people to wipe away their old marijuana convictions. Two bills that would decriminalize marijuana possession are also floating around Trenton.
But even though it looks like lawmakers will allow people to clear their old marijuana convictions, there figure to be plenty of new pot convictions to replace them.
“We are living in a time when the frequency of marijuana arrests and the number of marijuana arrests are going up annually,” said Amol Sinha, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. “It doesn’t seem feasible that we can expunge all the records we’re creating.”
There’s also still a big disparity in who police arrest for marijuana. Black residents comprised 13 percent of the New Jersey population but 39 percent of pot arrests in 2017. That discrepancy is nothing new.
The ACLU of New Jersey published a report in 2017 that found black New Jerseyans were more than three times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than white people in the state, despite similar usage rates.
These were some of the biggest reasons that Murphy, the state’s Democratic governor, cited for his interest in legalizing marijuana.
“Gov. Murphy has repeatedly said that he believes legalization of adult-use marijuana is critical to eliminating disparities in the criminal justice system,” said Alyana Alfaro, Murphy’s press secretary. “Each week that marijuana remains illegal, approximately 600 people in New Jersey will be arrested for low-level drug crimes, with the majority of those being people of color.”
But with legalization no longer being considered in the Legislature, it remains unclear how the state can reduce these low-level marijuana arrests.
Both Murphy and state Senate President
Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, have said they don’t favor decriminalization, which would stop police from arresting people who have small amounts of marijuana. There are decriminalization bills in both the Assembly and the Senate, but neither bill has
gained much momentum.
State Sen. Ronald Rice, D-Essex, is the main sponsor of the decriminalization bill in his chamber, and he has said multiple times that the unwillingness of the governor and the Senate president to consider his bill shows him that they care more about making money off marijuana than keeping people from getting arrested.
For their part, both Murphy and Sweeney have said they don’t favor decriminalization because they feel it legitimizes the illegal market.
“The attorney general has already issued guidance directing prosecutors to use discretion in these cases," said Alfaro, Murphy’s spokeswoman. "While this is an important step, Gov. Murphy believes that legalization must be the ultimate end goal in order to prevent continued injustices. Up to and until legalization, this business will remain in the shadows without the regulation needed to ensure public safety.”
But, as it stands now, marijuana arrests continue in the state unabated, even as lawmakers are set to vote on a plan that would let people clear their marijuana convictions.
The Legislature is set to take up a bill on expungements in June.
That plan would allow people with marijuana convictions to immediately apply to have those records cleared, among other broader changes to the state’s problematic expungement system. But the state is arresting more than 30,000 people each year for marijuana possession and it only clears about 10,000 convictions every year.
That math troubles Sinha, the ACLU of NJ director.
“We’re in a situation where it feels like one step forward and two steps back,” he said. “We’re agreeing that expungements are necessary, but we’re still arresting people” for marijuana crimes.
“It’s a vicious cycle.”