FLICKR/MATT HINTSA
Perhaps the most significant change in Sen. Scutari and Sen. Sweeney’s new adult use cannabis legalization bill is the change in residency requirements for cannabis license holders. In earlier iterations of Sen. Scutari’s legalization bill, cannabis license holders had to be New Jersey residents for two years prior to the date of the license application. The thought process behind this requirement was to prevent established cannabis businesses from jurisdictions that have already legalized cannabis from entering the New Jersey marketplace and establishing dominance before New Jersey citizens had an opportunity to gain a foothold themselves.
The new bill has changed that. It creates a defined term known as a “significantly involved person” which essentially means a person or company with a 20% or greater stake in the company applying for a license. § 9(a)(3) of the new bill states that “[a]n applicant shall have a significantly involved person or persons lawfully residing the State for at least two years as of the date of application to receive a license.” Continue reading
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The attorney arguing for the insurance company who provided workers compensation insurance for Freehold Township argued that the workers compensation court could not order the insurance company to pay for the medical cannabis because cannabis is illegal under federal law. This argument is called a preemption argument, which means that the Supremacy Clause in the United States Constitution – which makes federal law “supreme” over state law – should not allow the workers compensation judge to rule in the injured worker’s favor. The insurance company cited to a June 14, 2018 
Sen. Sweeney’s comments suggested that preparing the budget actually made the cannabis discussion more difficult. “I’m thinking late July, August, hopefully,” Sweeney said. “Now that this budget’s out of the way, not that a lot of this stuff’s out of the way, all the noise is out of the way, hopefully the administration and we all can focus on marijuana.”
“We’re not going to be able, even if we desired, to take over state enforcement of routine cases that might occur,”