By Matt Rooney
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So many people I know voted “YES” on this year’s marijuana ballot question because of the promise of new revenue. If people are going to smoke it anyway, they reasoned, why shouldn’t Trenton tax it?
Well, some of us knew better. We’ve seen it all before. Sure enough, on Monday, Senate President Steve Sweeney and his legislative pals finally delivered the punchline: New Jersey’s suburbs and rural areas shouldn’t expect a dime.
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“Legalizing adult-use marijuana and wiping out current and prior penalties for possession are important first steps in healing the damage done by the misguided ‘War on Drugs’ that disproportionately targeted Black and Latinx communities. But it is just a start, and much more needs to be done, as we heard today in powerful testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee and in previous hearings, roundtables and forums,” Sweeney, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Nicholas Scutari, and Senator M. Teresa Ruiz declared in a joint statement.
“For that reason, we are announcing today that all state revenue from legalized adult-use cannabis should be dedicated to impacted communities to reverse the harmful effects of systemic racism in our criminal justice system, from arrest to sentencing to incarceration,” the trio continued. “Those drug laws, with their mandatory minimum sentences, destroyed the lives of too many people of color, and we need to ensure that those new revenues are dedicated where they can do the most good to revitalize our communities.”
“Impacted communities.” So Newark, Camden, Paterson, Trenton, Atlantic City…
Your community? Where most of the tax ratables come from to support these perennially fiscally challenged blue vote factories? Not so much, folks. Just like we predicted (and then have seen) with the gas tax, the money never goes where it’s supposed to end up.
“But at least we can all get stoned together,” Asw. Holly Schepisi (R-39) darkly quipped on Facebook, reacting to the Democrat Senate leadership’s press release.
Indeed. We will go woke and broke together, Save Jerseyans. At least you can get high while your joint (and state) burns down.
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