Friday, November 10, 2017

New NJ governor committed to legalizing cannabis

Legal marijuana in 100 days? Pot proponents thrilled with Murphy - Louis C. Hochman, New Jersey 101.5 FM:

November 8, 2017 - "For proponents of legal recreational marijuana, Democrat Phil Murphy’s victory in New Jersey’s gubernatorial race is reason to celebrate. Murphy has said he wants to legalize and tax marijuana — it’s part of a plan that along with higher taxes on the wealthy he projects would bring in $1.3 billion in revenue a year. And he’s got strong support in the Legislature for doing so.

"All that has stood in the way of legal marijuana for the last few years is a sure-bet veto from current Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, who has derided marijuana as a gateway drug....

"'People like (State Sen.) Nick Scutari and (Senate President) Steve Sweeney and Phil Murphy want to bring this poison, legalized, into this state under the premise that, well, it doesn’t matter because people can buy it illegally anyway,' Christie said in May. 'Then why not legalize heroin? I mean, their argument fails just on that basis'....

"Scutari has said repeatedly he anticipates a marijuana legalization bill could be made law within the first 100 days of a Murphy administration. He’s gone so far as to introduce legislation that would tax recreational marijuana by 7 percent to start, with increases over the next few years.

“'We don’t want to make marijuana legal and have people still buying it from the street corner,' Scutari said in May. 'We want to bring it out of the shadows. We want to get our neighborhoods safer. We want to make sure that the product is affordable and is not something that we’re going to [have] undercut by people that are selling it illegally. The whole purpose of the program is to get rid of drug dealers.'

"[The] New Jersey CannaBusiness Association ... — headed by former Republican Assemblyman Scott Rudder — hailed Murphy’s win Tuesday night. 'Governor-Elect Murphy took a brave and compassionate position on cannabis legalization on the campaign trail,' Rudder said in a statement. He said his group would look to work with Murphy on 'common sense cannabis laws that will have a positive impact on civil justice reforms as well as an opportunity to create tens of thousands of new jobs and provide a much-needed boost to our ailing economy.'”

Read more: http://nj1015.com/legal-marijuana-in-100-days-pot-proponents-have-a-friend-in-murphy/
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