Marijuana shops in Princeton should be at least 1,000 feet from schools and other youth facilities
Princeton’s Cannabis Task Force (CTF) recommends that youth be able to walk from their schools to a marijuana dispensary in approximately 34 seconds. Under the guise of reducing “the stigma around a product that is now legal,” they also want boutique cannabis dispensaries to be able to open next door to parks, churches, and playgrounds. The Princeton Council must override the CTF’s recommendations and require that marijuana shops be at least 1,000 feet from schools. They must also apply this same buffer to other youth-oriented facilities and reject the CTF’s efforts to normalize drug use.
As my employer, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, pointed out in its rebuttal to the CTF’s recommendations, most neighboring municipalities opted out of retail marijuana sales. And none of the neighboring municipalities that opted in imposed a 200-foot buffer from schools––all but one adopted a 1,000-foot policy, according to the CTF’s report’s appendix. Nevertheless, the CTF recommended that marijuana shops be allowed to open only “200 feet from schools.” This raises the question of whether they actually “researched nearby municipalities’ decisions,” as they alleged.
Those questioning the CTF’s incautious recommendations should know that many of their members stand to benefit financially from the sale of marijuana. One former member hopes to receive a marijuana sales license in town, and multiple members have deep ties to the marijuana lobby. Additionally, CTF Chair and Councilmember Eve Niedergang has welcomed the industry’s “desire to bring business to town.”
Cannabis connoisseurs may chime in that a majority of residents voted to legalize marijuana. Even so, the New Jersey Herald reported, “Nearly 71% of towns across New Jersey…completely opted out of the recreational cannabis industry.” Recognizing “the effect of marijuana on the adolescent brain,” the Princeton Board of Education called for “cannabis dispensaries to be no closer than 1,000 feet to any school.” And as the press reported, “the majority of residents who spoke during the [CTF’s] meeting said they opposed dispensaries in Princeton.”
Residents are rightly concerned, and their disapproval is not dissimilar to the opinions of Americans nationwide. The University of Michigan conducted a poll that revealed, “3 in 4 parents feel medical marijuana dispensaries should not be allowed near elementary, middle or high schools.”
The CTF argued that it “kept social and racial justice considerations in the forefront.” Normalizing marijuana use is unlikely to address health-related disparities, and a recent national poll found only 31% of African Americans favor the full legalization of marijuana. Additionally, The Guardian reported “many of the Black and brown entrepreneurs who were supposed to benefit from legalization have actually ended up losing money.”
The Cannabis Task Force’s recommendations reflect their desire to commercialize marijuana in Princeton, no matter its effect on public health or public safety. The Princeton Council must reject their efforts. If they decide to be an anomaly in New Jerey and allow marijuana sales, they must impose a minimum 1,000-foot buffer between marijuana shops and youth-oriented facilities.
Connor Kubeisy
Smart Approaches to Marijuana
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Marijuana shops should not be in Princeton.
I find it disingenuous that Planet Princeton runs a byline on this article as being from a “community contributor”. I’m pretty certain Mr. Kubeisy is not a member of this community. My understanding of the decision to have a buffer for dispensaries of 200 feet from schools is because that is the buffer for liquor stores. As both liquor and cannabis are now legal recreational drugs in New Jersey why should the buffer for one differ from the other?
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LinkedIn says Connor lives in DC and works for a “fact-checking news site” produced by The Daily Caller. He won an award at the Hoover Institution Summer Policy Boot Camp in 2021 for a paper on the drug war. I’m surprised at his interest in whether these highly regulated cannabis stores will be 200 or 1000 feet from anything in our local community.
When something is wrong, watch the rationalizations spin…..
As a person with long time sobriety and abstinence from mood altering chemicals, it boggles my mind to see how eager people are to bring mayhem and mental chaos to the local kids and adults. Why not wait and gather statistics one year from now on how pot shops are affecting other communities? Mark my words, watch and see how these areas will be affected: motor vehicle violations and accidents, mental health problems and vandalism. I can also bet that the police do not favor this. Once this goes forward, there is no going back, folks. What is popular is not always right.
No diversity of thought.
Welcome to Princeton, home to the Princetoners and importation of addicts and crime. What next? Soft on crime or the perception of crime. A disastrous decision in the making in a disingenuous justice wrapper. Commercializing psychoactive drugs at the expense of the next generation will be a regrettable decision and a poor legacy for each council member and the mayor.
Mr. Schwartz, do you propose we cancel Connor K -and his comments since he has been googled as being not from Princeton? Maybe we cannot listen to any expert unless they live in Princeton’s bubble. Or if someone disagrees with us let’s not listen and try to cancel them out or Google them in search of adequate dirt to dispute their opinion. This, in a university town. It’s embarrassing.
I’m not aware of any liquor stores within 200 or 1,000 feet of our schools. If a liquor store opened up 200 feet from our high school, you can bet parents would be very upset. Also, please stop shutting down comments as the council loves to to by tying everything to national politics. Many liberal Dems in town oppose cannabis retail within 1,000 feet of schools, including our school board.
I think there are liquor stores pretty close to St. Paul’s…
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
We elect the mayor and council to make wise decisions on our behalf. Bringing marijuana storefronts to downtown/uptown and all around Princeton would not be a wise decision. I can only see negatives regarding a shop selling drugs and run by former ex convicts. Upon research reading The Daily Princetonian I find that Udi Ofer CTF member says that dispensaries labeled as a means of social justice will give the Cannabis Task Force “high moral ground” so residents will not question recreational dispensaries. In fact, the CTF in their report, says that social justice is the main reason why Princeton needs dispensaries. Bringing drugs to any community of any race is not a positive and stating that dispensaries are needed under the veil of social justice is wrong. There are better ways to fund social equity and none of them include selling addictive drugs all over town.
Part of the Princeton population wants a strip club on Hulfish due to easy access to a parking garage. We should have a task force study them and write an ordinance. I’m sure there will be lots of volunteers who will write pro-strip club recommendations. These clubs, too, should be allowed where other businesses can operate like the bars and pot shops every day and night at 200 feet or less near schools and playgrounds. For equity there should be three in different parts of town accessible to everyone. How should the tax money from strip clubs be spent to counter the exploitation of young women?
A Princeton pot shop will be permanent.
PERMANENT.
There is no trial pot shop. Once opened the town is stuck with it. No let’s see what happens and change our minds later.
This is an experiment that should not be conducted in the town of Princeton or with its residents and children.
You can be pro legalization and against pot shops on every corner. In fact, most neighboring town councils have said no to cannabis businesses.
There has not been a single coherent argument why marijuana dispensaries should be treated any differently than liquor stores… Not from the School Board, not from any “experts”, not from anyone in this forum. There is not one scentila of evidence that marijuana storefronts bring any more safety issues or health/addiction issues for youth (or adults) than liquor stores. It is the height of hypocrisy that folks are up in arms about 200 feet for marijuana shops but not a peep for liquor stores. Truly stunning. In fact, there was no opposition to the recent relocation of a liquor license from the Princeton Shopping Center to Nassau St., where far more young people will be exposed to far more addictive drugs than cannabis, commonly called beer, wine and liquor.
There is a serious conflict of interest when a voting council member of the Princeton Cannabis Task Force solicits the public to speak in favor of pot shops. It does make you wonder what the motivation is considering the “unbiased” recommendations.
There is substantial research suggesting that recreational marijuana dispensaries negatively affect communities. I have yet to see one stating that they advance the health and welfare of a community. The comparison to alcohol is irrelevant but it is a time worn argument from proponents. It is the weakest of positions that believes something (recreational MJ) is “good” because it isn’t “as bad” as something else (alcohol). Similarly, the desire to advance social equity, as the CTF has committed to do, is also a shallow position. The dispensaries will do nothing for social equity, in fact they will amount to a regressive tax on the poor much like the lottery does. Nor will there be any financial windfall for the town. Finally, the CTF has discredited itself simply by its skewed composition. What is the Chief Medical Officer of a publicly traded (Canadian xchng) marijuana company doing on this task force? Doesn’t he stand to personally benefit from the proliferation of marijuana dispensaries? Finally, the governing Council of our town must answer the essential question—How do recreational marijuana dispensaries advance and enrich the lives of its citizens?
Substantial research? Not exactly. Yes, there is research that recreational cannabis dispensaries negatively affect communities. There is also research that shows the opposite. I wouldn’t say that there is “substantial” research that affirms or denies either viewpoint. The real point that RV tries to wiggle through is the alcohol vs. cannabis conundrum. Like it or not, cannabis is a legal recreational drug in New Jersey, JUST LIKE ALCOHOL. There are mountains of scientific evidence as high as the sky that alcohol sales and consumption have adverse effects on communities, but RV feels that we should just put that to the side as it is “weak” to make the comparison between cannabis and alcohol. Why is it weak? It seems logical – comparing the risk/benefit of the sales of two legal, recreational drugs. To put RV’s question back to the community: How do the multitude of liquor stores and bars advance and enrich the lives of the citizens of Princeton? Likely, in the same way that marijuana dispensaries would. But, the costs to Princeton in terms of resulting violence, crime, substance abuse and negative health impacts would be far lower for dispensaries than for liquor stores. So, why approve liquor stores but outlaw dispensaries?
Maybe we should ask President Eisgruber of Princeton University since several Princeton University staff were members of the town of Princeton Cannabis Task Force and unanimously decided to push pot shops into town, near homes and schools of Princeton residents so that PU students have a place to use drugs that are not allowed on PU campus due cannabis being a federally illegal class 1 substance. PU receives federal funding so it is not permitted to have federally illegal drugs on campus, which would endanger its federal funding. I object to PU directing town policy and pushing drugs into our town.
What is the University’s input on this proposal? What is their policy on use/possession/sale of pot on campus?