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People performing their civic duty has paid off.
While it’s taking a much longer time to determine who won the presidential election because of the unprecedented amount of mail-in ballots, one thing that a community was to decide on was to legalize marijuana. That’s right– New Jersey has become the 12th state to make weed recreationally legal. The state overwhelmingly –66.9 % to be exact– voted that adults 21 and over can possess the good green, which was listed as Public Question 1.
Jersey has set itself apart from most other states regarding marijuana and was one of the first when legalizing it medicinally back in 2010. Thankfully, the state’s even been able to break down the kinds of people the drug’s been able to help, including those with chronic pain due to musculoskeletal disorders, anxiety, PTSD, and severe or chronic pain due to cancer or HIV.
The ruling also helps with the racial stigma behind marijuana and the overwhelmingly amount of Black people in jail for low-level drug offenses.
“I’m highly confident that today we will achieve a great milestone, and it is overwhelmingly a step toward, at long last, social justice,” New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told Hot 97. “When I came into office, the widest white/non-white gap of persons incarcerated in America and the overwhelming reason was low-end drug crimes. And please, God, we will finally wrestle this to the ground. It’s taken longer than I wanted, but I believe we’ll get there when we have the results from today.”
The Garden State will now tax weed at 6.625% for those 21 and older as they begin the possible lengthy progress of issuing licenses.
Elsewhere on the ballot, Oregon decriminalized small amounts of heroin and cocaine, while South Dakota, Montana, and Arizona, also legalized recreational weed.
