Colorado lawmaker Dan Pabon owes a lot to the legalization of recreational marijuana in 2012: the unemployment rate has fallen to 2.3 percent, and an extra $40 million has gone towards the state's schools.
But he isn't sure of the negative impacts of legalization, such as the rate of drivers arrested in marijuana-related incidences. If there was something he could do over, Pabon told members of the New Jersey State Assembly's Oversight, Reform and Federal Relations Committee, it would be to have gotten a better handle on that data before 2012 — like so that he could compare it to the rates after.
It was one example of testimony in the hearing, which was attended by nearly 100 people.
Social justice activists urged the panel to legalize marijuana to put an end to the disproportionately high number of arrests of black and brown men on possession charges. They said states that legalized the drugs without addressing the consequences of the arrests, and incarcerations, on minority communities are now having to go back and create new legislation. They said bills should dedicate a portion of marijuana revenue to educating young entrepreneurs, clear the records of people who were arrested under prohibition, and allow poor people to grow their own cannabis plants.
Several doctors told the panel that legalization is needed so that people living in pain could have access to marijuana's medicinal benefits. Marijuana is legal in New Jersey for medical use already, but proponents of legalization argue not enough diseases qualify, and that there are not enough dispensaries in the state selling the drug, forcing ill users to travel far to buy it.
There are two bills in Trenton to legalize marijuana. The drug is already legal in nine states, and Washington, D.C.
But sentiment among New Jersey citizens is mixed.