New Jersey Senator Introduces Bill to Legalize Recreational Cannabis

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]R[/dropcap]ecreational cannabis could be legalized in New Jersey as well as the expansion of medicinal under new legislation. Sen. Nicholas Scutari introduced legislation June 7 addressing both recreational and medical cannabis. He has been working on passing a recreational cannabis bill in New Jersey since 2004, and is finally making headway.

The senator introduced a bill in 2017 that went nowhere and reintroduced the bill when Gov. Phil Murphy took office. He recently announced a new combined bill that aims to two biggest issues relating to cannabis: full legalization of cannabis for adults and an expansion of medicinal cannabis.

Scutari’s new bill calls for 218 cannabis dispensaries, 120 of them recreational and 98 medicinal. According to the bill, Senate Bill 3195, “municipalities may ban a dispensary from opening within its border, but the local governing body must pass an ordinance doing so within 180 days of the law’s enactment.”

Scutari introduced another bill, Senate Bill 830, which only deals with recreational cannabis for adults 21 and older. The legislation states that a positive drug test cannot be used against a person applying for medical health care, housing or a job “unless failing to do so would put the school, employer, or landlord in violation of federal law or cause it to lose a federal contract or funding.”

Earlier, Scutari was going to introduce a third bill that would expand New Jersey’s medical cannabis program, but later set it aside until it could be approved by a co-sponsor.

“The only thing the combined bill has in common is cannabis. Each of those issues should be treated separately because they have different regulatory frameworks, challenges and purposes.” Vitale told NJ.com. Sen. President Stephen Sweeney, agreed to sign on as a sponsor of the combined bill.

While the governor takes the steps to grow the program, he also looks to lawmakers to make more ambitious changes allowing the state to issue licenses for new business to join the market.