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Top lawmakers moved Monday to add a constitutional amendment to legalize adult use marijuana in New Jersey.

In doing so, they acknowledged they will no longer pursue legalizing weed for those 21 and over through legislation, but will let voters decide instead.

Senate President Steve Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Middlesex, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued a joint statement announcing the introduction of legislation to seek voter approval of a constitutional amendment to legalize adult use marijuana in the Garden State.

"We are moving forward with a plan to seek voter approval to legalize adult use marijuana in New Jersey," said the joint statement. "We introduced legislation today to authorize a public referendum for a proposal that will lead to the creation of a system that allows adults to purchase and use marijuana for recreational purposes in a responsible way."

"This initiative will bring cannabis out of the underground so that it can be controlled to ensure a safe product, strictly regulated to limit use to adults and have sales subjected to the sales tax," said the joint statement. "We will have the Legislature vote on the plan during the current legislative session and expect the proposal to be on the ballot in 2020, when voter turnout will be maximized for the national election. We are confident it will be approved by the Senate, the Assembly and the voters,"

The concurrent resolution proposing to amend Article IV, Section VII of the New Jersey Constitution, for the new ballot question in November 2020, reads: "Proposes constitutional amendment to legalize cannabis for personal, non-medical use by adults who are age 21 years or older, subject to regulation by Cannabis Regulatory Commission."

The move by Sweeney was expected after a controversial weed bill failed to garner enough Senate support last legislative session to make it to a floor vote. That measure was shy by about three or four votes as key senators remained noncommittal to a revised bill.

Regional differences and internecine squabbles among senators, as well as a rift between Gov. Phil Murphy and Sweeney over tax incentives, led to the weed bill's ultimate collapse in mid-May.

At a hastily called press conference May 15, Sweeney announced the bill's death in the upper chamber. He was asked a month later what options were left for the bill's passage.

"The only way is going to be the referendum," Sweeney told the Law Journal in late June, the day the Legislature approved a $38.8 billion state budget.

Lawmakers said recently that efforts to revive the weed bill in the coming months—known as lame duck, the period after the November legislative elections and before the new legislative calendar begins in January, had little to no traction.

"We made further attempts to generate additional support in the Senate to get this done legislatively, but we recognize that the votes just aren't there," said Monday's joint statement. "We will now move forward with a plan that helps correct social and legal injustices that have had a discriminatory impact on communities of color. We can make real progress towards social justice at the same time that cannabis is made safe and legal."

Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, and Annette Quijano, D-Union, chairwoman of the Assembly Judicial Committee, who are Sweeney's and Scutari's counterparts in the lower house, said they fully support the constitutional amendment.

"We plan to pass the measure this year and next in order for New Jerseyans to have the opportunity to make the decision in November 2020 when we expect voter turnout to be high due to the presidential election," Coughlin said in a statement.

The resolution would need to pass both houses of the Legislature by three-fifths majorities in one year, or by simple majorities in two consecutive years to make it onto the ballot.

Murphy said although a constitutional amendment wasn't his first choice to legalize marijuana for adults, it will suffice to right a social injustice.

Adult use marijuana had been a key campaign promise by the governor ever since he ran in 2016.

If the 300-plus page New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory and Expungement Aid Modernization Act 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.

"My belief that our current marijuana laws have failed every test of social justice and that the right course is to legalize its use by adults has not changed," Murphy said. "I am disappointed that we are not able to get this done legislatively and that our failed status quo—which sends roughly 600 people to jail a week for possession, the majority of them people of color—will continue."

"However, I have faith that the people of New Jersey will put us on the right side of history when they vote next November," Murphy added. "By approving this ballot measure before the end of this legislative session, New Jersey will move one step closer to righting a historical wrong and achieving what I have spent more than three years advocating for."

But the opposition said a constitutional amendment will galvanize them further to defeat the legalization of weed for adults in New Jersey one final time.

"It is par for the course for the marijuana industry's promoters in the legislature to try and legalize the drug through back door means, but thankfully lawmakers stood strong in opposition," said Dr. Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana Action (SAM Action) and its New Jersey affiliate, New Jersey Responsible Approaches to Marijuana Policy (NJ-RAMP) in a statement Monday.

"Now, with the effort moving to the ballot box, we will work to counter the industry's well-tuned misinformation campaign, educate voters to the harms marijuana legalization has brought to the handful of states that have adopted it, and defeat the industry in the Garden State once and for all," Sabet said.

Some say history was on weed supporters' side since constitutional amendments do well in New Jersey. A constitutional amendment legalized casino gambling in Atlantic City, and decades later, did the same for sports betting at racetracks and casinos.

"There's a history of New Jersey voters saying 'yes' to referendum questions," said Marty Judge, co-chairman of the cannabis group at Flaster Greenberg in Cherry Hill, in an interview in June. "It's rare for people to say 'no' when these issues are on the ballot.

"If cannabis gets on a question by a referendum, it's probably going to pass," Judge said.