The failure in the Legislature marks one of the biggest setbacks for Murphy, who despite having full Democratic control in the state Senate and the General Assembly, had faced constant party infighting and had struggled to bend the Legislature to his progressive agenda.
But the legalization effort had fractured the Democratic Party, with some African-American lawmakers arguing that marijuana would be a public health menace to their communities.
“In my heart, and from my experience, I know the detriment it’s going to cause long term in urban communities in particular,” Sen. Ronald L. Rice, a Democrat from Newark, said in an interview this year. “We know the health problems that are going to be created and no one wants to accept that fact.”
The sweeping bill sought to redress what its supporters say are the consequences of the war on drugs on minorities and tackle concerns about fairness in the multibillion-dollar cannabis industry.
In seeking to bring recreational marijuana to the doorstep of the nation’s biggest city, the bill would have wiped away criminal records for hundreds of thousands of people convicted of minor drug offenses. It would also have given many in jail the chance to be set free and end parole for many others.
The law also aimed to diversify a booming industry dominated by white entrepreneurs in the 11 other states and Washington, D.C., where recreational marijuana has been decriminalized. New Jersey would have ensured that minorities, as well as women, have equal access to licenses to sell or cultivate cannabis.
“We have the widest white-nonwhite gap of persons incarcerated in America, and far and away the biggest contributor is low-end drug offenses,” Murphy, a Democrat, said recently at a news conference where he made his case for legalizing marijuana. “The status quo is unacceptable.”
Though polls showed that most New Jersey residents support legalizing marijuana, Murphy had struggled to win support in the Legislature for what was a centerpiece of his election campaign. It was not until final revisions were made to the bill, especially the beefing up of measures making it easier to expunge criminal records, that the plan gained support from civil liberties and criminal justice activists from New Jersey and beyond.
“I’m impressed that it has a strong criminal justice part in it,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said before the passing of the bill. “My concern had been that legal recreational marijuana has not dealt with the damage that has been disproportionately suffered by blacks and other people of color, and is just setting up people to make a lot of money.”
Murphy, he added, “answered that in an impressive way. It would be a national model that we would bring around the country, including New York.”
An effort to legalize marijuana in New York has been sputtering with black lawmakers saying they will block the implementation of the potential $3 billion statewide industry if the current bill does not ensure that minority entrepreneurs share in the profits.
New Jersey had also been taking a more expansive approach than many other states to erase criminal records of people charged with marijuana-related crimes. Anyone in New Jersey convicted of possessing up to 5 pounds would have been eligible to have their convictions erased, a far higher amount than other states with expungement systems.
The state was also seeking to make the expungement process easier by allowing it to be done online, eliminating the requirement to do it in person, which can be time-consuming and expensive.
“No state has leaned into social justice through marijuana legalization as wholeheartedly as New Jersey,” Amol Sinha, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said. The bill, he said, would have set “a baseline for what it looks like to meaningfully acknowledge the human wreckage of the drug war and make good-faith efforts to reverse the damage done.”
Ever since Murphy had announced his support for legalizing marijuana as a candidate two years ago, expungement had been central to the debate. Supporters of legalization say stringent drug laws have unfairly targeted minorities: A black resident of the state is three times more likely to be arrested on marijuana-related offenses than a white resident, a recent study found.
New Jersey was also moving to rewrite the vast racial and class disparity in the marijuana industry. White ownership makes up more than 80 percent of cannabis businesses across the country, according to a 2017 study.
In identifying communities that would have been granted licenses, lawmakers focused on places like Newark and Atlantic City, with high crime rates, including marijuana arrests, and high unemployment rates. The legislation would also have allowed anyone with a past marijuana conviction to apply for a license.
The bill would have required that a minimum of 10 percent of licenses be given to smaller businesses, which are defined as those with 10 or fewer employees.
Leaders in struggling cities like Trenton and Paterson pointed to the potential cannabis industry as a boom.
“Social justice and economic development go hand in hand,” said Mayor Reed Gusciora of Trenton. “I walk in the streets and talk to many constituents that talk about a prior record and how it’s a hindrance for them to get ahead, get a job, which will result in economic development for this city.”
Still, plenty of opposition to legal marijuana exists, and dozens of communities had already voted to ban retail and growing operations in their towns. Some communities had also complained that a 3 percent local tax that can be added to retail sales was too low.
The legalization of cannabis would have marked a major victory for Murphy, who spent the final days before Monday’s vote in an all-out blitz to pressure lawmakers into supporting the bill.
The campaign also placed New Jersey at the center of a national conversation among Democratic presidential candidates over legalizing marijuana.
“All too often, communities of color and low-income individuals are unjustly impacted by our broken drug policies, but by including measures to expunge records and reinvest in the communities most impacted, our state has the opportunity to lead in prioritizing social justice,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., a presidential candidate who introduced a federal bill that would remove the drug from the list of controlled substances before the bill was considered by the Legislature.
With nearly a dozen states having already legalized marijuana, New Jersey pieced together much of its plan from efforts elsewhere, though the state’s program would have featured a few differences.
Customers in New Jersey would have been able to have marijuana delivered to their door and would have been allowed to use cannabis in loungelike settings that will be similar to cannabis cafes found in California, Colorado and several countries in Europe.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.