New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed three bills last week decriminalizing marijuana possession and creating a statewide market for recreational cannabis sales, but the new commission in charge of figuring out the future of legalized weed in the Garden State is already under criticism from some of the same advocates who backed the push for reform.
One major concern centers on the fact that none of the five members of the Cannabis Regulatory Commission, which is in charge of licensing and regulating cannabis businesses in the state, appear to fit a mandate in one of the new marijuana laws. The legislation states that one of the commission’s members must be a representative of a national organization “with a stated mission of studying, advocating, or adjudicating against minority historical oppression, past and present discrimination, unemployment, poverty and income inequality, and other forms of social injustice or inequality.”
That language was written, according to sources in the New Jersey legislature, with the NAACP in mind. The NAACP’s New Jersey chapter, which advocated for the legislation, wrote a letter last week to the governor contending that because it lacks a member from a social or racial justice group, the makeup of the commission violates the legislation that established it.
“The very people who fought to get this legislation passed are currently being excluded,” said attorney Gregg Zeff, an attorney with the state NAACP. “They’re going to be regulating this industry, and who better to regulate this industry than individuals involved in the social injustice related to it?”
The commissioners work full-time and will be responsible for overseeing a program with racial justice at its stated core. They’re responsible for licensing businesses that grow, distribute, sell, and deliver cannabis, and must prioritize licenses for those who live in “impact zones” — areas disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs. There are also incentives for cannabis businesses to hire residents in these impact zones.
Each impact zone is intended to have two licensees for cannabis operations, according to the law. The commission must publicly report the number of people from socially and economically disadvantaged communities, including people of color, who applied for licenses—and whether they were approved or not.
In New Jersey, Black residents were arrested for marijuana offenses at a rate nearly 3.5 times that of white New Jerseyans, leading to incarceration, family separation, and income loss. The new reforms are intended to address that by earmarking 70 percent of cannabis sales tax revenue for “social equity appropriations” in education, economic development, drug treatment, food assistance, prison reentry services, mental health treatment, and legal aid in impact zones. The commission must make recommendations to the governor and legislature on how exactly this money is spent, and hold public hearings to get input on how to spend such funds.
The commission is also supposed to be consulted on the retraining of police officers. Cops are facing a major change: The smell of marijuana can no longer be used as the sole reason to make a motor vehicle stop or search an individual on the street. The commission is mandated to report racial disparities in arrest rates for drug offenses and the number of motor vehicle stops for suspicion of driving under the influence of cannabis.
On WNYC’s Ask Governor Murphy on Wednesday, the governor said he had spoken to the NAACP earlier in the day about its concerns. “We’re working on that,” he said. “And I would just say to folks stay tuned and we’re working on some of the issues being raised.”
The disagreement might stem in part from clumsy wording in the bill. Working as a “representative of a national organization” while holding a full-time job on the commission, which pays between $125,000 and $141,000 a year, could violate state ethics rules. The head of the commission, Dianna Houenou, did work at New Jersey’s ACLU, which would fit the description in the legislation. But she left that job more than two years ago.
The criticism is compounded by the fact that there are no Black men on the commission. Advocates say that since Black men, more than any other group, were adversely affected by the war on drugs due to aggressive policing and excessive sentencing—and given the fact that racial justice was the stated reason for marijuana reformthe absence is glaring.
“There’s no one on the commission who has lived experience with the brutalities of the drug war,” said the Rev. Charles Boyer of the group Salvation and Social Justice, which lobbied for decriminalization. “There’s no one here who knows what it has been like to have been arrested or incarcerated. There’s no one here who was ever in the underground market.”
Commission chair Houenou is a Black woman who has said that she hopes the commission “prioritizes minority voices and equity,” according to an NJ.com Q&A.
The commission was expected to be fully operational by now. It was created by a separate 2019 law expanding the state’s medical marijuana program, and Senate President Stephen Sweeney had urged Murphy to have the commission ready to go by November 2020, when voters approved legal cannabis by an overwhelming margin. But it took months after Election Day for lawmakers and the governor to agree on the legislation to create the regulatory framework for the legal marijuana market and decriminalize cannabis. The governor announced the final appointments to the commission late last week, just days after he signed the legalization bills.
The regulatory body is mostly female and non-white. The governor, as specified in the law, made three appointments: Houenou; Maria Del Cid, a policy director at the state Department of Health and a former chief of staff to an assemblyman; and William Wallace, a former pharmacist and an executive at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 342.
Sweeney, the senate president, got one appointment—Krista Nash, a social worker who worked with returning criminal offenders with mental illness at the Volunteers of America. She’s married to Camden County Commissioner Jeff Nash, a Sweeney political ally.
Assembly Speaker Coughlin also chose someone in his political orbit: Sam Delgado, a former Verizon executive and husband to Assemblywoman Yvonne Lopez, Coughlin’s district running mate.
Neff, from the NAACP, said one solution would be to pass a bill to add two more members to the commission, with the senate president and assembly speaker each getting an appointment. But that would shift the power on the commission to the legislature—something Murphy is unlikely to agree to.
One other critical function of the commission is to oversee an expansion of the medical cannabis program, which is so popular that it consistently struggles to meet demand. And that goes to another piece advocates say is missing from the commission, said Chris Goldstein, a local organizer with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
“Patients and caregivers already navigate high prices, limited access, questionable quality, and even regular purchase limits within the program,” Goldstein said. He said it would build trust with the medical cannabis community if someone on the board “actually consumed this plant, too.”
A spokeswoman for Murphy was asked whether anyone on the commission is a medical marijuana patient or a caregiver authorized to provide cannabis. She said she could not disclose personal medical information.
