NEW YORK— New Jersey lawmakers are on track to approve a law that ultimately could bring nearly 100 marijuana retailers to the state and spawn an $850 million industry, advocates said at a conference.
Months of stop-and-start negotiations and public forums are expected within days to yield a new bill to make marijuana legal for any 21-year-old New Jerseyan and further expand medical access to the drug, said Scott Rudder, president of the New Jersey CannaBusiness Association, which represents businesses looking to grow and sell marijuana in the state.
Speaking to more than 100 people at the Cannabis World Congress and Business Exposition, Rudder said the outlines of marijuana regulation in New Jersey are coming into sharper focus a month before lawmakers must approve a new state budget. Gov. Phil Murphy, who has championed legal weed, is counting on $80 million in tax revenue from the drug in his proposed budget for the year beginning July 1.
While experts forecast an $850 million annual market for marijuana in New Jersey with nearly 100 retail locations, Rudder said New Jersey will start slow.
“You go outside the cannabis space and start talking to people at soccer fields, police chiefs, they’re struggling with this. It may be a slow rollout,” he said. “We’re still trying to convince people that it’s OK. It’s going to be a long conversation.”
New Jersey would be the 10th state to allow adults to buy and use marijuana without medical conditions. Murphy’s push for legalization has drawn opposition from many Republican lawmakers and some Democrats, particularly members of the Legislative Black Caucus. Sen. Ron Rice, the head of the caucus, favors lifting criminal penaltiesfor possessing small amounts of marijuana rather than establishing a legal marketplace.
Rudder, a Republican former state lawmaker, said it’s “probable” that the Legislature approves legal marijuana by June 30.
Taxing legal weed
If New Jersey permits sales to adults, its marijuana industry would reach $850 million a year in 2022, or about 2.4 percent of the total U.S. market, said Matt Karnes, founder of GreenWave Advisors, a marijuana business consultancy. That’s slightly below the state’s current 2.8 percent share of the U.S. population.
The current bill to legalize marijuana in New Jersey, by Sen. Nicholas Scutari, sets an initial 7 percent tax rate on sales that would reach 25 percent after five years. Murphy has proposed an initial tax of 25 percent, but Rudder said Scutari’s position appears to be prevailing. A lower tax rate would help eliminate the black market by making legal weed competitive on price, Rudder said.
Scutari’s bill doesn’t set a cap on the number of marijuana retailers in the state. It does give cities strong powers to decide where and to whom permits to operate marijuana businesses go, which some marijuana advocates called a recipe for corruption.
“We do see the opportunity for favoritism and corruption and we have seen that elsewhere,” said Paul Josephson, a Cherry Hill lawyer who advised Murphy during the governor’s transition to office, at a conference session. “The mayor should not be picking winners and losers.”
Joshua Bauchner, a Woodland Park lawyer who advises the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he expects nearly 100 legal dispensaries in New Jersey, based on the number of Taco Bell locations in the state. It’s a fair rule of thumb to expect marijuana retailers to roughly equal locations of the popular fast-food franchise, Bauchner said.
Credit: www.northjersey.com
