Lawmakers mulled Thursday whether New Jersey should ramp up enforcement against unlicensed cannabis sellers by passing a bill that would criminalize the purchase of unlicensed marijuana.
The bill riled cannabis activists who say it would bring back the criminalization of weed that New Jersey’s marijuana legalization law was supposed to end.
Under the bill, sponsored by Senate President Nick Scutari (D-Union), it would be a third-degree crime to operate an unlicensed marijuana business and a disorderly persons offense to knowingly purchase from one. A person who leads an “illegal marijuana business network” would be charged with a second-degree crime.
“We have a problem where people are opening up brick-and-mortar stores, small stores, unlicensed to sell these products, and quite frankly, they’re just selling them and this state is doing nothing about it,” Scutari told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday. “We need to do something more about those brick-and-mortar stores, but we also need to continue to fight back against drug dealers because those are alive and well.”
Scutari spearheaded legalizing recreational cannabis, first introducing legislation to regulate it for adult use in 2014. After bills languished in the Legislature, recreational cannabis was legalized in 2020 by voters, and Scutari was the primary sponsor of the bill to launch the legal marijuana industry.
Scutari said the new legislation would be a corrective measure in response to the “black and gray market” that has flourished even though hundreds of cannabis dispensaries have opened statewide.
New Jersey has some of the most expensive cannabis in the nation for both medical and recreational users. The industry has raked in over $1 billion since sales launched in April 2022.
The committee did not vote on the bill, which does not yet have a companion in the Assembly.
Lawmakers generally voiced support for Scutari’s proposal to address the unlicensed THC products that they say undermine the regulated industry. Sen. Joe Lagana (D-Bergen) said he’s seen questionable cannabis products in “every single gas station I walk into, every convenience store, every corner store.”
Sen. Mike Testa blasted Attorney General Matt Platkin for what he called “absentee” leadership. And Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Union) said that once certain laws aren’t enforced, the community “loses respect for government.” Bramnick suggested the committee should call on Platkin to appear before them on the issue and said ignoring the law is “disrespectful to this body.”
A spokesperson for Platkin did not respond to requests for comment.
Cannabis advocates who helped usher in the recreational market criticized Scutari’s bill as a dangerous reversal. One of them, attorney Bill Caruso, told committee members they need to speak to local mayors and law enforcement about the tools they need to fight against unlicensed cannabis sales.
“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel here, and I don’t think we need to go backwards in recriminalizing particularly consumers,” he said.
He also agreed that the attorney general “needs to explain to the elected officials of this body” why laws aren’t being enforced.
Larry Grant is a cancer survivor who takes cannabis for chronic pain and is a board member of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana. Grant called the bill “deeply unethical” and “the opposite” of what legalization set out to achieve.
“People with cancer or chronic pain disability could be arrested simply for accessing a plant that helps them survive,” he said. “Recriminalization is not regulation. It’s retaliation.”
Scutari said he’s open to changes to the bill, but establishing the crimes of selling and, in some cases, purchasing unlicensed marijuana “is necessary in order to drive people to a place where they can buy it legally.”
“We would not accept the corner store that didn’t have a liquor license to sell liquor. We should not accept the corner store selling cannabis product without a license, nor should we accept people selling it out of their garage,” he said. “We have a legal marketplace now, and there are good reasons for it because it is safe for people to ingest that product.”
