New Mexico joins national recreational marijuana wave
SANTA FE, N.M — New Mexico’s Democratic-dominated Legislature has sent a package of cannabis bills to a supportive governor as the state prepared to become the latest to legalize recreational marijuana.
Lawmakers used a marathon two-day legislative session to push through marijuana legalization for adults over 21 and a companion bill that automatically erases many past marijuana convictions, overriding skeptical Republicans.
By signing the bills, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham would extend legal recreational pot sales in the Southwest by April 2022, when the New Mexico legislation kicks in, and join 16 states that have legalized marijuana, mostly through direct ballot initiatives.
California and Colorado were among the first in the U.S. to legalize marijuana, with Arizona becoming one of the latest in the region to follow suit earlier this year.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a legalization bill Wednesday, and a proposal in Virginia is awaiting the governor’s signature.
The New Mexico initiative, passed late Wednesday, would reconsider criminal drug sentences for about 100 prisoners and give the governor a strong hand in licensing the industry and monitoring supplies.
New Mexico flirted with cannabis legalization in the 1990s, when then-Gov. Gary Johnson challenged taboos against decriminalization in defiance of Republican allies. The state’s medical marijuana program, founded in 2007, has attracted more than 100,000 patients.
The Legislature was reticent to legalize until now. Several hardline opponents of legalization in the state Senate were voted out of office by Democrats in 2020 primary elections in a shift that paved the way for Wednesday’s historic vote.
Under the legalization package, New Mexico would levy an initial excise tax on recreational marijuana sales of 12 percent that eventually rises to 18 percent. Possession of up to 2 ounces of marijuana would cease to be a crime, and people would be allowed six plants at home — or up to 12 per household.
“The United States of America is in the midst of a sea change when it comes to this,” said Democratic state Rep. Javier Martinez of Albuquerque, lead sponsor of the legalization bill. “This bill begins to repair the harms of prohibition.”
Republican state Sen. Gay Kernan of Hobbs voted against legalization and said she was amazed that legislative colleagues would support the freedom to buy mindaltering drugs amid New Mexico’s struggles with poverty and opioid overdoses.
“I just think it’s terribly unfair to impose this kind of significant change in our way of life and areas of the state that clearly do not welcome this,” Kernan said.