As a proud Jersey stoner, a lifelong dream comes true on legalization day
It’s hard to believe that more than four years have passed since I wrote an article for Leafly entitled “If New Jersey Legalizes Weed, Will I Have To Move Home?”
At the time, Phil Murphy was poised to win his first term as governor, and his stub speech included a promise to sign legalization into law in the first 100 days of his term.
As you know, that didn’t happen. But not for lack of trying.
1,022 days into Murphy’s governorship, he brought the issue to state voters, who voted 67-33% in favor of legalization. Then it took another 112 days for the law to get on the books.
That was more than a year ago.
But now – finally – the first legal cannabis sales will take place in New Jersey on Thursday morning. And I will be there for that.
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A lifelong fear of being caught
I’ve been writing about cannabis for twenty years. I was lucky enough to be in Colorado for America’s first federally regulated adult sale in 2014. I was eighth in line, writing an article titled “I Just Bought Legal Weed,” which thoroughly documented one of the highlights of my career as a journalist – and truly my time on planet Earth.
16 states have since legalized it, but nothing hits you like home.
As a young person growing up in the Garden State, smoking weed helped ease my anxiety while also giving me a whole new kind of fear: the fear of being arrested. From the very first time I got high (behind a bowling alley on Route 22), every single experience of buying or even owning weed in New Jersey was accompanied by a touch of anxiety.
Or worse.
Witness the damage of the War on Drugs
My last known address in New Jersey was searched by the police for a quantity of cannabis that is now legal to carry anywhere in the state. An amount that any adult can buy from a store in the same state, starting today.
I was not at home when the raid took place and was not later charged with any crimes. (I was once arrested in New York City for smoking a joint on the street, which is also now perfectly legal).
At the time of the police raid, I had been a cannabis reporter for about a decade. I had written countless articles about people whose lives had been shattered growing, smuggling, selling, or simply possessing a relatively harmless, highly medicinal plant. Then I saw it happen in my own home, in my own home state.
Not coincidentally, this state is also home to some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Including one that sponsored my first little league team.
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Lives were derailed because of an ounce of weed
After the police raid, people I loved then and love now faced far greater legal repercussions for an ounce of illegal weed than any single big pharma executive in New Jersey who was directly or indirectly involved in a multi-billion dollar ilk -Conspiracy involved getting people addicted to addictive, deadly opioids.
Heavy fines, police confiscation of cash and personal belongings, threats of years in prison, legal costs, court visits, probation, stigma, sleepless nights, and the psychological damage when armed state agents secretly monitor you and handcuff you during the threat of deadly force Failure to comply leaves deep emotional and financial scars.
Millions of my New Jersey compatriots suffered the same fate. Some remain imprisoned for cannabis crimes to this day.
Which begs the question: how do you ask a person to be the last person to go to jail for making a mistake?
Cops arrest you to the bitter end
According to a 2017 ACLU report, New Jersey police kept their foot on the accelerator for marijuana arrests until legalization became law. The report noted, “New Jersey is making more arrests for marijuana possession than ever, in ways that are more racially diverse than ever.”
The report estimates that law enforcement spends approximately $143 million annually on marijuana enforcement in NJ, not including lost tax revenue and other societal costs. Around 90% of arrests were aimed at consumers rather than retailers. In New Jersey, blacks were at least three times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than whites, despite similar rates of use.
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To live free and without fear
I didn’t exactly leave New Jersey because of cannabis prohibition, but if weed had been legal back then, I might have stayed. I’m a third generation resident and most of my family still live there. I love eating a Taylor Ham egg and cheese sandwich on the waterfront as much as anyone.
I had hoped to be present on the first day of the legal sale, but the state’s ever-changing timeline for when that would happen made planning impractical. Also, I have to admit that eight years after opening stores in Colorado and more than a decade since I got my first medical cannabis card in California, a bit of disappointment is setting in. The ban, after all, was the aberration – not legalization.
After the first few times, buying weed from a store feels quick, well, to borrow a phrase from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws – pretty normal. Aside from the sticker shock of paying taxes on it.
So instead of flying across the country right away, allow me to share some shopping tips with my many 420-friendly friends in the Garden State. First of all, don’t let your late arrival to the party spoil the historical character of the occasion. Also, try to source from pharmacies and brands that represent the legacy market, the stock market, and local property.
Company weed is like company pizza.
Now tell me, where would you rather get a piece – Domino’s or Santillo’s (since 1918)? And how many of Papa John’s franchises do you think have made it onto this prestigious list?
The invisible progress of arrests not made
Cannabis decriminalization is an incredibly powerful societal change that is also elusive. Nobody’s thinking, “Wow, I would have been arrested for weed today if we hadn’t changed the law.” Yet as late as 2017, New Jersey police were still arresting 98 people every day on weed charges.
Ending cannabis arrests is a huge win for social and racial justice, but buying cannabis from a store is what the public associates with legalization. That’s precisely because you can see it.
When I was in Denver on the first day of legal sale, dozens of news trucks lined the street in front of the pharmacy, beaming footage around the world. Seeing this, I turned to my shopping companion and stole a line from Apocalypse Now:
One day this war will end.
I knew that a century of uncompromising government and media propaganda—used by men like Harry J. Anslinger and William Randolph Hearst to shore up their racist and repressive war on marijuana—would melt away when confronted with news footage of people living peacefully Queuing to buy devil’s lettuce, right out in the open, and then happily getting on with their lives.
In too many places in America and around the world, we continue to be arrested and imprisoned for doing the exact same thing. And so the fight goes on. But as New Jersey is showing us today, the momentum is certainly on our side.
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Cannabis can’t cure this, but…
When I write about cannabis for so long and talk about it often, as I have at events and on my podcast, one tends to make up a few standard phrases. Maybe my favorite:
Cannabis isn’t a cure for being an asshole, but it’s a good start.
I always make it clear that I am primarily referring to myself. As a young person, I had a large chip on my shoulder. I felt like New Jersey was irrevocably full of assholes without ever realizing I was an asshole too.
This is how I put it (correctly) in my book How to Smoke Pot:
I first tried cannabis as an angry young man who saw a lot of injustice in the world and didn’t have much hope of fixing it…
In the end, not only did weed help me learn to stop worrying and love New Jersey (and even be less of an asshole). Weed also proved me wrong. Because this week, the stinking injustice of cannabis prohibition in my home state is finally coming to an end.
David Beehive
Veteran cannabis journalist David Bienenstock is the author of How to Smoke Pot (Properly): A Highbrow Guide to Getting High (2016 – Penguin/Random House) and co-host and co-creator of the Great Moments in Weed History podcast with Abdullah and Bean.” Follow him on Twitter @pot_handbook.
View David Bienenstock’s articles
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