'It's Monday Or Never': Gov. Phil Murphy Says Bill to Legalize Recreational Marijuana in New Jersey Short on Votes

TRENTON, N.J. (CBS/AP) — Days ahead of a planned vote in the legislature that would make New Jersey the 11th state to legalize recreational marijuana, Gov. Phil Murphy said Thursday that the measure is short of the votes needed to pass. The Democrat spoke Thursday during a news conference alongside more than a dozen supporters of the bill, including the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, and said he and legislative leaders are “making progress, but we have a ways to go.”

“It’s Monday or never as Elvis Presley used to say,” Murphy told reporters when he was asked what if the bill doesn’t pass.

Murphy and fellow Democrats, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin and Senate President Steve Sweeney, support the measure, which would legalize recreational cannabis for people 21 and over.

But lawmakers have expressed reluctance, and the vote’s outcome Monday is uncertain. Forty-one votes are needed in the Assembly and 21 in the Senate.

Read more