The Legalization of Marijuana in NJ and its Effects on PA’s Medical Program

New Jersey, who has already legalized medical marijuana in the year of 2010, helping more than fifteen thousand patients, will probably be the next American state to legalize marijuana for recreational use. According to the campaign of the recent-elected governor of NJ Phill Murphy, he will sign the legislation legalizing marijuana within 100 days after his inauguration. The full legalization of marijuana should generate around $1 billion per year and collect something around $300 million in taxes. Of course, these are studies based on the quantity of people who said to of use marijuana, which is probably a number way bigger than the people who spoke out (that was only 4% of the population), but the national average is around ten percent, so these numbers will probably increase over time.

Pennsylvania has a program for medical marijuana, but since it is limited and offers only oil-based products, the state may suffer a great loss to the state of New Jersey, seeing that some entrepreneurs and business owners are thinking about opening shops to sell marijuana right across the bridge. These shops will offer marijuana in all types and sell it for all purposes, such as recreational or medical, and of course, they will only sell to you if you are 21 or over. The profits expected when the process starts will probably go down with the legalization of marijuana in New Jersey.

The Legalization of Marijuana in New Jersey

Almost certainly by June, Murphy will sign the legislation. Despite being legalized, the cities will have the option to call out from the operations related to cannabis and they will have the opportunity to reconsider their choice every 5 years. By legalizing cannabis to recreational use, the state of Pennsylvania may lose revenues to New Jersey State, since it is very likely that people go across the bridge to buy, with a large variety of products that are cannabis-based. Maybe even pushing the state of Pennsylvania to consider creating a legislature so that marijuana is used for recreational ways too. Many shops should open on the border which will increase people’s interest in going to New Jersey to buy marijuana and with much better options than the ones that are found in Pennsylvania.

Although people aren’t certain about how it is going to work the legalization of cannabis in New Jersey, the referendum and the licenses they are betting on the cannabis commerce in the state, some people are even considering moving from Pennsylvania. It may sounds easy to open a cannabis-related company but the banks usually have a strong resistance to hand out loans to a “drug” business, a problem that might be solved with the idea of Murphy to open a public bank that will not have the influence of personal opinion on the matters of loaning money.

The legalization of marijuana on both states will create several new benefits to the population, to the patients, and the government even though in Pennsylvania the use of marijuana is only allowed for medical use. The legalization in New Jersey may speed up processes and push the state of Pennsylvania to think about legalizing it for all uses. Furthermore, the revenue with biggest potential is when legalizing the use for recreational use. The revenue for clinical research will have a big impact but only when we are talking about a long-term situation, in which many people with diseases and conditions such as Epilepsy, Parkinson, cancer and others will be benefited by the use of medical cannabis. As the studies increase and more people get interested in creating new types of use and treatment for marijuana, more people will receive help.