New Jersey voters will decide Election Day 2020 whether recreational cannabis should be legal. Assuming the current polling data is correct — more than 60% in favor — adult-use marijuana will be legal about this time next year.
There’ll be plenty to discuss between now and then. The ballot question, for instance, doesn’t address revenue and social justice in the ways detailed legislation would have.
Three leaders in the cannabis space will talk about these issues and more during a business networking session Jan. 15 at Red Tank Brewery in Red Bank.
Tickets are limited for this NJ Cannabis Insider meetup. Sponsored by Supreme Security Systems, speakers include Republican state Sen. Declan O’Scanlon, Fruqan Mouzon, a leading cannabis attorney and the former general counsel for the state Senate Majority Office; and Jackie Cornell, chief of policy at 1906 cannabis edibles and former principal deputy commissioner at the state Department of Health.
“New Jerseyans have been eagerly waiting for the legislature to take action on legalization,” Cornell told NJ Cannabis Insider Monday after the Senate and Assembly cast historic votes to place the question of legalization to voters in 2020. „It is imperative that the ballot initiative is coupled with a meaningful implementation plan for Jan. 1, 2021.”
Before Election Day, Cornell said, there is plenty more to do for the state’s 60,000 medicinal patients, starting with appointing the Cannabis Regulatory Commission, meeting the statutory deadlines in the Jake Honig Act, as well as moving forward with critical research through the clinical registrant permits.
O’Scanlon, a supporter of medical cannabis, has said he won’t support any form of legalization legislation “until and unless voters have voted in favor of legalization.”
Mouzon, who is a pro-business lobbyist, told NJ Cannabis Insider he’s extremely optimistic about the ballot measure passing next fall.
“The most recent poll found that 62% of New Jersey residents are in favor of ending marijuana prohibition in this state and there is reason to believe that support is growing,” said Mouzon, the cannabis chair at McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter. “Nationally, that number is 66-67%. I believe those numbers. I would be more shocked if the referendum failed than I would be if the Jets, Giants, or Knicks made the playoffs this year.”
Present at NJ Cannabis Insider’s most recent meetup in Atlantic City were representatives from three of New Jersey’s dispensaries — Curaleaf, Compassionate Care Foundation, Garden State Dispensary — as well as lobbyists from Genova Burns, Marijuana Policy Project, Komjathy & Kean, Minorities For Medical Marijuana, and ACLU-NJ.
Click here for more details and to purchase tickets.
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