The states of the US are in a process of legalizing recreational marijuana and working in that direction a new legislation was introduced in the state Senate of New Jersey on Monday.
Under this new legislation, growing, selling and using of marijuana would be legal in the state. It was Nicholas Scutari, the Democratic Sen. a longtime friend of the cannabis movement who sponsored the bill. Speaking at a news conference he said, “It is time to end the detrimental effect these archaic laws are having on our residents and our state.”
The bill has feeble chances of being enacted under Chris Christie, the Republican Governor who hates pot and calls bill “beyond stupidity.” Thus, Scutari made it clear that he is just laying the groundwork as of now so that the bill gets enacted when the next governor is appointed.
In New Jersey, use of marijuana is already legalized for medicinal purposes, but Christie is totally against relaxing marijuana laws for recreational purposes. He also happens to lead the White House commission that is examining the opioid crisis in the country for Trump administration. Christie feels that if marijuana is legalized for recreational purposes soon people will start demanding heroin and cocaine legalization and poisoning the future generations for money is not the right thing to do.
He said, “To me, legalization of marijuana for tax purposes — and that’s the only way people justify it because you can’t justify it any other way — is blood money.”
Nearly 61% of the country’s population feels that marijuana should be legalized in the country, according to a CBS news poll.
The race for the governor of New Jersey is on and Phil Murphy, the Democratic gubernatorial front-runner is in support of legalizing marijuana for recreational purpose. The other Democrats who are running for governor are also backing it. This includes Jim Johnson, Assemblyman John Wisniewski and state Sen. Ray Lesniak.
Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, the Republican front-runner, on the other hand, said that it is very unlikely that Jeff Sessions, U.S. Attorney General would accept this legalization thing in New Jersey. She, however, refrained from making her personal stand public. Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, another Republican candidate said that he opposes this legalization, though he is in favor of broadening the limits of state’s current medical marijuana program.
