NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- New Jersey voters will likely decide if marijuana should be legal in the Garden State.
Accrding to published reports, lawmakers have introduced legislation to put legalizing pot on the ballot next November.
State Senate President Steve Sweeney and Sen. Nicholas Scutari announced the legislation. In a joint statement, they said:
"This initiative will bring cannabis out of the underground so that it can be controlled to ensure a safe product, strictly regulated to limit use to adults and have sales subjected to the sales tax."
"We are confident it will be approved by the Senate, the Assembly, and the voters," they added.
If the ballot referendum passes, New Jersey residents won't be able to legally partake until 2021, NJ.com reported.
Gov. Phil Murphy made legalizing marijuana a focal point of his campiagn, but the bill fell short in the state Senate in March.
"My belief that our current marijuana laws have failed every test of social justice and that the right course is to legalize its use by adults has not changed," Murphy said in a statement Monday. "I am disappointed that we are not able to get this done legislatively and that our failed status quo – which sends roughly 600 people to jail a week for possession, the majority of them people of color — will continue. However, I have faith that the people of New Jersey will put us on the right side of history when they vote next November. By approving this ballot measure before the end of this legislative session, New Jersey will move one step closer to righting a historical wrong and achieving what I have spent more than three years advocating for."
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