Last Monday, Governor Murphy signed three bills into law that decriminalized marijuana in New Jersey and set out orders to have previous convictions and/or pending cases dismissed. This didn’t come as a surprise as New Jersey residents had overwhelmingly voted in a referendum to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes. What did come as a troubling surprise was that Murphy denied parents’ right to know about their own children’s alcohol and marijuana consumption.
In the most sensible of policies, many police departments across New Jersey would call a minor’s parents if they were caught drinking alcohol or smoking marijuana, allowing the parents to intervene and steer their children away from the harmful and addictive substances. But now, Governor Murphy has put in severe restrictions to what police can do.
For one, Governor Murphy now ordered that the odor of marijuana or alcohol no longer constitutes a reasonable articulable suspicion to initiate a stop of an individual under the age of 21, nor does it provide probable cause to search the person’s personal property or vehicle. Secondly, when cops see an alcoholic drink or marijuana in plain sight in the possession of an individual under 21 years old, it does not constitute probable cause to initiate a search. Third, an individual under 21 who is in possession of marijuana or alcohol cannot be taken into custody except to issue a written warning. And fourth, the police are not allowed to contact the parents of a child who has marijuana or alcohol in their possession.
These new rules are outright insane. Blocking police from helping parents keep dangerous substances away from their children isn’t right in any way. There is no justification for it.
As the Point Pleasant police department said in a statement, “We see these laws as not only counterproductive but also as a detriment to the safety of our children.” They are 100% correct. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that having parents involved when an underage child is using alcohol or marijuana is common sense.
“This policy goes against every step we have taken as a department, a school district, and a community to work collaboratively to protect our children,” the police department’s statement says. “We are shocked and appalled as a police department, but also as parents. Who will ensure the welfare of our kids if the police can neither act nor contact a parent or legal guardian?”
Who indeed, Governor Murphy? Are you OK with allowing our children to fall down the slippery slope of substance abuse in the name of “progress”?
Just one note, these rules were made by the democrats in the legislature and signed by Murphy, it wasn’t Murphy alone, all the democrats are complicit in this blatant anti police rules, this what you get when you have the state entirely run by the democrats, another reason to vote him out of office in November.
Why was this not reported? We only heard that pot became legal, this other stuff I never heard. Why did the legislature need to add those caveats ??
Absolutely INSANE !!
Remember the Democrats know better how we should raise our children and how we should live our lives.
Parents don’t need to know what is going on as long as the Democrats are looking out for and protecting our children all is good.
November we can take back our families and we have to.
Take if from a mother who’s been there and done that. My son kept on saying “Ma, don’t worry it’s fine….” and boy it wasn’t!! Smoking/eating weed fried his brain… he couldn’t hold down a normal job and was getting deeper and deeper into different types of weed and edibles. It wasn’t until really bad things happened to him, that he woke up and stopped smelling (smoking!) the weed!!
why is anyone surprised, this is what you get from liberlas
I’ve got to admit I’m not high on some of the Governor’s proposals, but I’ve also got to admit that I’m using my comment here as an opportunity to use a very obvious and lame pun.
STOP VOTING FOR DEMOCRATS!!
Bizarre, who and what kept you from going to the NJ gov website, finding the legislation and reading it yourself? You obviously have the internet, you are posting here.Did you ever read the entirety of the proposed bill?