The Straight Dope on NJ’s Marijuana Laws and What They Mean for Clients With Employees

The previous 13+ years in New Jersey have seen a increase in marijuana legalization legal guidelines, together with the medical marijuana regulation, the Jake Honig Compassionate Use Medical Hashish Act, and the leisure marijuana regulation, the Hashish Regulatory Enforcement Help and Market Modernization Act. Predictably, attorneys within the state of New Jersey have additionally seen a increase in shoppers questioning the that means of those legal guidelines, which can in the end finish in further litigation between workers and employers (and has already). 

Background on Marijuana Legalization

Medical marijuana legalization started in New Jersey in January 2009, when then-Governor Jon Corzine signed the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act into regulation, and since then, using medical marijuana has been expanded to deal with a myriad of bodily and psychological well being situations, from most cancers to continual ache to gastrointestinal ailments to melancholy and anxiousness. Legalization of leisure marijuana had been championed by high-profile New Jersey legislators and activists, which culminated within the November 2020 election the place New Jersey residents voted to legalize marijuana for grownup leisure use as effectively. Together with these quickly altering legal guidelines, attorneys have fielded numerous questions from shoppers about how legalization impacts their workforce, together with questions relating to employers’ obligations to offer lodging to disabled workers utilizing medical marijuana for remedy, the enforcement of drug-free office insurance policies and propriety of sure drug-testing protocols, and the interaction between New Jersey’s marijuana legal guidelines and federal legal guidelines that also criminalize marijuana use and possession. 

What You Must Know About Medical Marijuana