Senate President Stephen Sweeney. Photo: Carmen Natale

The effort to pass a bill to make recreational use of marijuana legal for those over 21 is over—at least for this legislative year.

Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, held a news conference in the Statehouse on short notice Wednesday to announce that the anticipated recreational marijuana bill was all but dead for the remainder of the 2019 legislative calendar.

Instead, he said, the issue would most likely be put before New Jersey voters in 2020 as a ballot referendum.

“The votes aren't there,” Sweeney said alluding to his 40-member Senate chamber. “That's on me. This is a defeat.”

But what wasn't on him, he said, was the governor's role in the bill's collapse.

“Once the governor announced the expansion of medical marijuana against the advice of the Legislature, it was over,” said a stoic Sweeney. “That took the energy out of the recreational piece. There was no longer an urgency in getting it passed with the expansion of medical. It took the pressure off.

“The governor didn't listen to advice that legislators gave him,” Sweeney added. “It takes two houses and the governor to move a bill here.”

Sweeney said the new plan is to move forward on introducing bills to expand medical cannabis and an expungement bill to wipe records clean of those previously charged with minor marijuana offenses.

The expungement portion was originally part of the recreational bill introduced earlier this year, but has now been made separate to appease lawmakers who were uneasy over its terms.

Both pieces of legislation, Sweeney said, are expected to be called for a vote before both chambers next month.

The Legislature recesses July 1, contingent on passing a balanced state budget.

“Adult use marijuana will be legalized in New Jersey but it won't happen now,” Sweeney said in a statement that his aides handed out just before the start of the 11 a.m. conference Wednesday. “It would have been best to move the adult use and medical expansion bills at the same time, but it is wrong to hold the medical and expungement bills hostage.

“We want to move forward to help transform the state's medical marijuana program and to achieve the progressive reforms for social justice.”

Later in the day, Gov. Phil Murphy responded by saying he supported a renewed effort at expungement legislation, and said he felt as though the adult-use bill was a team effort among him, Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex.

“We didn't quite get there,” Murphy said at an event in East Windsor. “We had the votes in one chamber. We came close in the other. But life goes on.”

Dr. Kevin Sabet, president of NJ-RAMP (Responsible Approaches to Marijuana Policy) and SAM (Smart Approach to Marijuana) Action, and a former drug policy adviser to President Barack Obama, seized on the bill's defeat as a win for the public.

“The pot lobby stood against parents, medical professionals, clergy, minority leaders and thousands of concerned residents all to pray at the altar of the marijuana industry investors,” Sabet said in a statement. “Gov. Murphy and pro pot legislators burned enormous political capital this year to recklessly ram through legalization of commercial weed, including dangerous, high-potency THC products.

“Sen. Sweeney's announcement today that commercial pot will not advance during this session is a victory for every person and every community that would have been victimized by this predatory industry,” added Sabet.

Companies wanting a piece of the new industry hired a fleet of lobbyists to represent their interests in Trenton. Firms, such as Eaze Solutions Inc.—which is sometimes likened to the Uber of marijuana delivery, with operations in Colorado and California, and Acreage Holdings Inc.—spent $1.39 million last year lobbying on marijuana issues, both medical and recreational, according to the New Jersey Election Law and Enforcement Commission, which regulates the industry.

“Today's move by the Senate president was not a surprise based on the political turmoil of the last couple weeks,” said Dale Florio of Princeton Public Affairs Group Inc., the state's top grossing lobbying firm. “Legalization of marijuana is a serious step and a very personal vote for many members. The current political environment just doesn't lend itself to deal making.”

A far cry from just two months ago.

The recreational marijuana bill was once fast-tracked and its passage considered inevitable in a Democratic-controlled statehouse where the governor and both chambers were seemingly on the same team.

But it gradually fell apart for various reasons, not the least, intraparty squabbles, regional differences, and a side plot over tax incentives.

The recreational legislation's collapse signals not only a growing rift between Murphy and Sweeney, but also a hurdle for the governor, who made the legalization of recreational marijuana the centerpiece of his gubernatorial campaign.

The legislation, called the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory and Expungement Modernization Act, outlined how to organize and regulate a new cannabis industry, who would benefit from it and by how much, and had set social reform as a key target.

Murphy and legislative leaders had teased the rollout of the anticipated legislation March 12 after announcing they had reached a tentative agreement on its core principles. They were in tandem on the bill's mission to not only create a new revenue source for entrepreneurs, municipalities and the state, but also a blueprint for social equity. But the details were still a work in progress.

A key component was a provision to expunge minor marijuana offenses for certain individuals, in large part to aid minority communities that have seen a disproportionately high number of such convictions. An individual would be able to file a petition for expungement at any time under the legislation's terms.

The measure included other social justice reforms, such as the designation of “impact zones” with preference for new cannabis businesses, and incentives for minorities, women and disabled veterans to participate in the nascent industry. It allotted 30% of adult use and 30% of medical use licenses to minority, women, or veteran communities.

The bill sailed through the judiciary committees of both chambers March 19, setting the stage for votes before both houses within a week.

But on March 25, the bill didn't have the needed 21 votes for passage in the Senate and was pulled from the scheduled board list of bills for the upper chamber's scheduled voting session that day. The Assembly followed suit and canceled its scheduled vote on the measure as well.

If it had passed, New Jersey would have been only the second state after Colorado to establish regulations for marijuana use as an act of the Legislature, and the 11th in the nation to approve adult, recreational use of marijuana that permits the cultivation and sale of cannabis.

“I honestly expected this to pass in the first 100 days of the governor's term,” Sweeney said at the news conference. “I didn't expect it to be this hard.”

When asked afterward if it was any one thing that killed recreational cannabis for the remainder of this year, Sweeney said, “no.”

“Listen, this is defeat,” he said. “We didn't get the votes, and I'm responsible for that.

“Overall, people have a very strong feeling on this issue and the people that are opposed—you're not getting their votes. [Sens.] Dick Codey, Shirley Turner, Ron Rice—they were never moving onto the bill,” Sweeney said. “We had limited senators to choose from to get.

“But again, once [the governor's office] announced the medical thing, it just took all the urgency away.

“When we told the governor on March 25, 'Don't announce expansion of medical because it's going to hurt our effort,' and he went on the radio that night and announced it,” Sweeney said. “At that point it was done.”