Sen. Ronald Rice, who opposes the legalization of cannabis, has been ramping up efforts to put pressure on both Gov. Phil Murphy and Senate President Steve Sweeney to decriminalize marijuana possession. | AP Photo Lawmakers unlikely to move on cannabis legislation until lame duck

New Jersey lawmakers are unlikely to take action on cannabis legislation prior to the midterm election in November, reflecting little appetite for a decriminalization bill top Democrats had previously considered unworkable, according to a half-dozen sources involved in efforts to change the state’s marijuana policies.

The Legislature wrapped up nearly all of its most pressing business in June and, absent a grand bargain with Gov. Phil Murphy's administration involving the state’s controversial tax incentive programs, current momentum to tackle legislation requiring as heavy a lift as marijuana decriminalization or a bill to put legalization on the ballot has been limited, the sources said.


Both could be considered in the lame duck session after the election, they said. Assembly Democrats hope to capture a handful of seats in Republican-held swing districts and strengthen their majority in the lower house.

Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin have said they’d be willing to call a summer voting session to address unresolved issues relating to the state’s tax credits, as well as some controversial (and arcane) health care bills. However, since June, when the lawmakers passed measures to expand the state’s medical marijuana program and create new processes for expunging criminal records, the drumbeat for additional cannabis legislation has subsided.

“I don’t get the sense the Legislature will be back in full force” prior to November, said one lobbyist who’s worked on cannabis legislation.

Another lawmaker who has worked on other cannabis legislation said they “haven’t heard one thing” about top lawmakers advancing the decriminalization bill, NJ A5325 (18R), or a ballot question. The former cleared the Assembly Appropriations Committee in May, but hasn’t been taken up by the Senate.

In March, Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi (R-Bergen) and Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex) introduced legislation, NJ A5138 (18R), that would ask voters whether they want to legalize recreational marijuana and possession of up to one ounce. The bill has not been considered by a committee in either house.

Rice, who opposes the legalization of cannabis, has been ramping up efforts to put pressure on both Murphy and Sweeney (D-Gloucester) to decriminalize marijuana possession. Both Democrats have said they oppose decriminalization, arguing it creates strong incentives for illegal drug sales to persist, though they’ve signaled some openness to discussing the concept now that legalization is unlikely to occur before 2021.

In an interview, Rice said he planned to discuss the matter with Murphy in the coming weeks.

“I think we have to reconsider everything. I would say stay tuned on [decriminalization],” Murphy said in a radio appearance last week. “There is some passion in the Legislature, particularly for some folks I have a lot of respect for, Senator Ron Rice right here in Newark would be among them.”

Policies forwarded by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal last year instructed prosecutors to use their discretion in pursuing low-level drug cases. Even so, those policies explicitly forbade decriminalization at the local level — as Jersey City sought to do last summer.

Murphy, along with Sweeney and Coughlin (D-Middlesex), have all said one of the primary motivations for legalizing cannabis had to do with the racial disparities in New Jersey’s enforcement of current drug laws.

After Sweeney terminated the legislative effort to legalize marijuana for recreational use in May, Rice, along with other lawmakers from the Legislature’s black and Latino caucuses, have argued the criminal justice reforms sought by Democratic leaders could still be obtained through decriminalization.

“I … submit that you can’t tell anybody you’re for legalization and then say you’re against decriminalization,” Rice said in an interview this week. “People are going to get arrested on a daily basis.”