New Jersey’s Incoming Governor Supports Legalizing Marijuana Home Cultivation

With New Jersey voters electing U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) to serve as
the state’s next governor, there’s now a decidedly clearer path to
advancing a marijuana policy reform long awaited by consumers and advocates
in the Garden State: A home grow option.

New Jersey might already have an adult-use cannabis market, but Sherrill
replacing Gov. Phil Murphy (R) next year could be a boon for efforts to
build upon the voter-approved law in a number of ways.

Just about a week ahead of the election, Sherrill gave a preview of her
cannabis policy priorities, which includes preventing youth access to THC
products, effectively distributing tax revenue and addressing the lack of a
home grow option.

“The legislature feels as if they haven’t really gotten the law right
there. The cannabis companies feel as if the law isn’t right,” Sherrill
said in an interview. “So some of the kind of low-hanging fruit is the THC
drinks that are now unregulated and being sold in 7-Elevens, ensuring that
young kids don’t have access to cannabis products, making sure we’re doing
better enforcement—because I’ve heard from some mayors concerns about, in
bodegas, very young kids are getting access to edibles that look like
candy, and their parents don’t realize it’s not.”

“At the same time, addressing some of the home grow provisions, which I’m
supportive of, and then ensuring that we have better regulations around
cannabis, where it can be sold,” she said. “The reason the cannabis
industry wants it is because they want to legitimize their business.”

Sherrill separately said earlier this year that she backs “common-sense
regulations, safeguards and limits” for medical and recreational home grow,
pledging to work with stakeholders such as law enforcement to create a
regulatory model that’s implemented in a “thoughtful and safe way.”

Unlike most other states that have enacted cannabis legalization, New
Jersey continues to prohibit home cultivation for both adults and medical
marijuana patients. Murphy, the current governor, has argued on multiple
occasions that the state’s adult-use marijuana market needs to further
mature before home grow is authorized.

Seemingly contradicting that claim, dozens of New Jersey small marijuana
businesses and advocacy groups recently called on the legislature to allow
adults to cultivate their own cannabis.

Chris Goldstein, a New Jersey-based regional organizer for NORML, said in
an op-ed for Marijuana Moment last month that it was encouraging to see in
Sherrill a candidate who “wholeheartedly supports legalization and has
taken several major pro-cannabis actions while serving in Congress.” Her
embrace of home cultivation represents a “big shift for a former federal
prosecutor,” he said.

Meanwhile, asked about her views on the allocation of tax revenue from
legal cannabis sales, Sherrill said that, under the current law, “some of
the cannabis money was really supposed to go into more provisions ensuring
that kids didn’t have access to it,” but “that hasn’t happened.”

“I’d like to see some of it going where the legislation was saying that it
would go to,” she said. “But then, of course, if we can have more revenue
to put into a lot of the programs we want to see statewide, I’d welcome
that.”

During her time in Congress, Sherrill in 2019 and 2021 voted in favor of
Democratic-led bills to federally legalize marijuana and promote social
equity. That legislation—the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and
Expungement (MORE) Act—cleared the House both times, but didn’t advance in
the Senate.

Before being elected to Congress in 2018, Sherrill endorsed federal
rescheduling of marijuana.

“As someone running for federal office who also worked as a U.S. attorney,
I would like to see [marijuana] taken off the Schedule 1 controlled
substances list,” she said. “Because quite frankly, that means there’s no
known medical use and it can’t be studied. And we all know that that’s
simply not the case. So that’s the first thing that I would like to see
happen.”

Additionally, she’s consistently supported the Secure and Fair Enforcement
(SAFE) Banking Act to prevent federal regulators from penalizing financial
institutions simply for working with state-licensed cannabis businesses.

In 2023, the congresswoman sponsored an amendment to defense legislation to expedite
the waiver process for military recruits and applicants who admit to prior
cannabis use by allowing the lowest-level defense employees to issue such
waivers.

The prior year, Sherrill proposed an amendment to the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA) to eliminate the federal sentencing disparity
between crack and powder cocaine.

Another amendment she filed for the 2025 NDAA, which was blocked from floor
consideration, would have expanded eligibility for expungements of
non-violent drug convictions by removing an age restriction limiting relief
to those who were under 21 at the time of the offense.

In House floor votes, the congresswoman in 2019 and 2020 backed amendments
to protect all state marijuana programs from federal intervention. In 2022,
she voted in favor of legislation to expand medical cannabis research that
was ultimately signed into law by then-President Joe Biden.

This session, meanwhile, the congresswoman filed a bill that would require
Elon Musk and other workers at the Department of Government Efficiency
(DOGE), which Musk has since left, to submit to drug testing to maintain
their “special government employee” status.

Outside of marijuana, Sherrill joined other bipartisan congressional
lawmakers in 2023 in asking leadership to instruct federal health agencies
to include active duty military service members in psychedelic studies.

Curiously, however, she twice voted against amendments from Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) that were aimed at removing certain research
restrictions for Schedule I drugs, including cannabis and psychedelics.

NORML has given Sherrill an “A” grade in its voter guide.

While it’s not clear the extent to which the marijuana platforms of the two
top candidates for New Jersey governor influenced the final vote on
Tuesday, the Republican candidate, former state Assemblyman Jack
Ciattarelli (R), opposes legalization and called marijuana a “gateway drug”.

The post New Jersey’s Incoming Governor Supports Legalizing Marijuana Home
Cultivation appeared first on Marijuana Moment.