By Bobby Beers
Michael Nutter, the former mayor of Philadelphia, who signed the marijuana decriminalization law in 2014, passed the law only a few months after opposing this idea, is now a senior adviser and consultant to the cannabis company that oversees South Jersey.
Nutter was recently hired by Green Leaf Medical in New Jersey, a cannabis company intending to open in New Jersey along the Delaware Riverfront, reports NJ.com.
Based in Maryland and also based in Ohio, the company claims to be licensed for medical marijuana from the New Jersey Department of Health. If GreenLeaf gets a license, it intends to open a “growing, harvesting and distribution operation” in Gloucester City, reports NJ.com.
In 2014, Nutter signed into law the decriminalization of marijuana in Philadelphia, which was enacted by then adviser and current mayor Jim Kenny. But earlier this year, Nutter was against even discussing the decriminalization of marijuana.
From CBS3:
“People in this city … always come to me asking about work, asking about housing, or asking about the education of their children, or we can provide more services. No one came up to me with the question: “Can you do this? is it easier for me to stand on the corner of the street in front of some grandmother’s house and smoke my joint? “So let’s be realistic here.”
“And Nutter angrily rejected a statement by Council member Jim Kenny, the sponsor of the bill, that the bank was arresting unjustly against blacks.
“The African American community is offended by the fact that all these discussions and debates revolve around whether black guys can smoke as many jambs or poison as white ones,” Nutter said. – This is a fictitious problem. it’s an insult to the community. ”
Nutter disputes this characteristic, and he told NJ.com this month that he “was not opposed to the decriminalization of marijuana” during his tenure as mayor.
According to 2013 ACLU figures, blacks across the country are more than 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana-related crimes than whites.
New Jersey has yet to legalize recreational marijuana, even though Governor Phil Murphy has made it the backbone of its 2017 governorship campaign. Lawmakers made several attempts to pass a law on legalization in 2019, but to no avail.
Right across the river in Pennsylvania, lawmakers proposed a bill that would legalize marijuana across the state after Governor Tom Wolf announced his support for legalizing recreational marijuana.
