This week, guest writer Elise Young takes a look at the debate being sparked among police forces, lawmakers and local leaders by New Jersey’s recent legalization.
Legal — except if you make arrests?
Like any other New Jerseyans enjoying the recreational marijuana sales that started on April 21, police officers are free to use.
But two mayors are saying no way. The police union is telling members it’s best not to chance it. And Governor Phil Murphy says that if a bill barring off-duty cops from partaking lands on his desk, he would consider it.
Other state and local governments addressed this issue before sales began, with departments in New York City, Colorado Springs and elsewhere banning their officers’ use in part because the drug remains federally illegal. But New Jersey prohibits discriminating against employees who use marijuana. On April 13, Attorney General Matt Platkin — the state’s top law-enforcement official — sent a memo stating that police departments shouldn’t penalize officers who use marijuana unless an expert finds them to be intoxicated.
While police advocates aren’t telling cops not to use, they’re advising them that it’s a legal gray area. The U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms prohibits gun owners from using marijuana, and many departments require officers to own their weapons, they point out. Also, marijuana’s effects aren’t as easy to measure as liquor’s.
“No one knows what constitutes still under the influence,” Pat Colligan, president of the New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association, with 33,000 members, said in an interview.
“If I smoke a joint on a Saturday, I’m still going to have it in my system on Monday morning, and for 30 days.”
Lengthy wait
Recreational marijuana took an arduous path to the April 21 sales start in New Jersey. Murphy, who came to office in January 2018, had expected it within his first 100 days. But the process was bogged down until voters approved legalization in 2020. The regulatory framework took another 17 months.
New Jersey’s cannabis commission on April 11 approved retail applications from cannabis companies including TerrAscend Corp., Curaleaf Holdings Inc., Green Thumb Industries Inc. and Acreage Holdings Inc. Initially licensed as prescription-only providers, those businesses can now sell to anyone 21 and older for any use.
At a news conference on April 18, Murphy, a Democrat and retired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. senior director, said that on the police-use issue, he would be “open-minded to a legislative fix that would address this.”
Mayor Steve Fulop of Jersey City, the state’s second-biggest municipality, acted sooner.
“NJ’s policies allowing law enforcement to smoke is an outlier nationally and one that will put our officers + community at risk with impaired judgment,” Fulop wrote on Twitter on April 20. The drug is prohibited for the force, he wrote. Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis also said it would be banned.
No such statewide ban is up for lawmakers’ consideration. Senate President Nick Scutari, a Democrat who drove the legalization effort, has said he’s not willing to regulate what people do in their free time. As New Jersey’s highest-ranking state lawmaker, Scutari has control over which bills are posted for a vote. He…
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