


Marijuana has been minimally studied, so the health and safety ramifications of legalization are not fully known. The states that are joining Colorado can expect to see a similar economic boom from the legalized, taxed, and regulated sale of the drug.įor parents of color and parents of older teenagers, legalization for people over 21 comes as a positive good in a time where young adults can have their entire careers, lives, and educational futures derailed if they’re caught with a gram of weed on them. After Colorado legalized weed, the state gave the tax dollars from weed sales to their public school systems to the tune of $160 million in the first five years. Part of the reason voters like legalizing weed is the demonstrated impact it can have on the economy. But dispensaries are about a year and a half away.Ī handful of other states across the country have already legalized and decriminalized the drug for recreational and medical use, suggesting that voters have changed their minds about whether marijuana is a gateway drug and whether people deserve to go to jail for possessing it.Īnd then there’s the money. In New York, which legalized weed on the last day of March, possessing marijuana is now legal, as is smoking in public anywhere you can smoke tobacco.


The legislation came after voters overwhelmingly passed a referendum last November, as did their peers in four other states.Īnd while you can’t yet buy legal weed in New Jersey, it is now officially decriminalized, and the rules that the legal cannabis industry will have to follow in the Garden State are now in place. In late February, New Jersey legislators passed the laws that will govern the legal sale of marijuana for adult use in the Garden State.
