Flaster Greenberg Cannabis Law attorney Marty M. Judge was quoted extensively in a New Jersey Law Journal article discussing how the effort to legalize marijuana in New Jersey is just days away from fruition by state residents instead of lawmakers.
According to the article, the November 3rd ballot question to legalize adult use of marijuana appears to have the momentum, thanks to social issues, perhaps more so than economic reasons, say supporters and chairs of leading cannabis practice groups.
"Social issues are probably the main reason why the polls keep indicating that the legalization of marijuana is likely to be approved by New Jersey voters in the upcoming referendum,” said Marty Judge, co-chairman of the cannabis group at Flaster Greenberg in Cherry Hill. “I also think that what we are seeing now is the culmination of a trend that has been gaining steam among the American people for a long time."
“Whether people have relatives or friends who have received punishments for marijuana possession or sale disproportionate to the perceived nature of the crime, or they have been impacted themselves, it has always been hard for many people, myself included, to rationalize why marijuana should be put in the same category of drugs as heroin and LSD and to treat all of those substances as having equal detriment to the fabric of society, or harm to individuals,” said Judge.
“The disproportionate manner in which criminalization of marijuana has exposed minority people, especially young Black males, to long-term incarceration and all of the negative consequences that flow from that has been increasingly made clear to us through news reports and other exposés showing the horrible toll that this has placed on minority people and their families,” added Judge.
“I also have to think that there must be a philosophical, if not logical, tie-in between general sympathies in favor of the Black Lives Matter movement and the polls that are now showing strong voter support to legalize cannabis in a liberal place like New Jersey.”
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