Reefer Madness: Elderly Ocean County Freeholder Board Says Vote No to Marijuana

Shore News Network

The Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders, whose average age is in the early to mid 70’s claims that legalizing marijuana will lead to a full-blown drug epidemic in New Jersey.  Growing up in the “Reefer Madness” generation, a 1938 movie that depicts teens being lured by pushers to smoke marijuana, eventually leading to committing murder, rape, madness and other pitfalls that were associated with “Marijuana addiction” during that era.

Freeholder Virginia Haines, the eldest of the freeholders said marijuana usage could lead to bigger problems.   In Ocean County, there is already a growing opioid epidemic and once dated drugs like cocaine and crack are now making a comeback across the county.

“As our whole board has stated in the past, we are totally against recreational marijuana,” Haines said, according to the Asbury Park Press. “Medical marijuana is a different issue. We have no problem with that. Recreational (marijuana), we feel, can add to a lot of other issues; that it is a drug that will just lead others to go further into other drug addiction. … It’s detrimental to the people of New Jersey.”

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The measure is up for a ballot vote among New Jersey voters this fall and is expected to easily pass.  Under that law, adults 21 and over would be able to legally by marijuana products and revenue would be generated by the state in the form of a marijuana sales tax.


Photo by Martijn Baudoin on Unsplash


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