New N.J. legal weed law that eases penalties on underage drinking alarms lawmakers. But data shows few teens – NJ.com

The rules were clear for years: Those under 21 caught with alcohol could face arrests and fines.

But the law shifted nearly overnight last month. Legislators seeking a racially just response to underage marijuana use downgraded a criminal offense to warnings and roped alcohol in, too.

There will be no more searches of young people for concealed beer cans, and police officers cannot stop them if they smell marijuana, either. Instead, officers can issue written warnings if they catch someone under 21 with weed or booze. But those must come under restrictions that have concerned both parents and police.

Gov. Phil Murphy and state lawmakers spent two months debating penalties for underage marijuana use. Many wanted to remove criminal penalties for those under 21 caught with marijuana, citing disproportionate arrests of Black and brown teenagers throughout the drug war. They passed a decriminalization bill to do so.

However, Murphy wanted some penalties for those under 21. He took issue with a piece of another bill to launch a legal marijuana industry that would make underage cannabis use a disorderly persons offense.

Fines were debated and deemed unfair for poor families. Two separate efforts fell apart until lawmakers settled on the warning system, added an amendment to include alcohol on a Friday afternoon and passed the bill on a Monday morning. The maneuvering gave Murphy less than 20 minutes to take action on that and the bills to legalize and decriminalize marijuana.

The whirlwind stunned some lawmakers, who viewed the change as a policy overhaul made without outside testimony. And some, including Murphy, want to see it changed already.

But the debate isn’t about whether youths caught with marijuana or alcohol should face arrests or fines. In fact, statistics provided to NJ Advance Media show that very few young people are actually arrested for drinking violations, and that number is dwarfed by marijuana arrests made even after New Jerseyans voted to legalize weed in November.

Opponents of the law say they understand the need to spare youth, particularly minorities, from the clutch of criminal justice system. But they say the law goes too far by removing parents from the first round of warnings, essentially giving kids license to drink alcohol or smoke marijuana if someone will give it to them.

Under the law, parents receive a warning issued to a juvenile for a second offense. A third could result in referral to drug treatment or education.

“When I read this bill, it literally made it de facto legalization of marijuana for kids of any age. As a parent, I became irate,” said Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi, R-Bergen.

“It came as a total surprise,” she said. “I don’t believe that there should be criminal penalty, per se. I do think there needs to be consequences.”

New bills proposed by both Democrats and Republicans would alert parents at the first warning. Murphy on Monday said he had discussed such a change with Senate President Stephen Sweeney and called it “a step a step in the right direction. As a conceptual matter, I support that direction.”

Sen. Nellie Pou, D-Passaic, who helped craft the changes in the law Murphy signed last week, said the larger issue has always been moving away from criminal penalties for underage use.

She stressed that the new law does still provides for parental notification on a second offense that would allow them to intervene with their child. Under the old law, parents would have found out their child used alcohol or marijuana after they were already charged and put into the court system.

“It’s the idea of treating it as a public health issue, providing some kind of prevention and treatment as opposed to having that young person go spiraling down through the criminal justice system,” Pou said.

Making underage drinking a criminal offense isn’t deterring them, Pou said. The same goes for marijuana use.

“Including these reforms is in keeping with our goal of reducing interaction with law enforcement and having effective penalties that are fair and responsible,” Kevin McArdle, a spokesman for the Assembly Democrats, said in a statement. “As is the case with marijuana, the graduated penalties include parental notification for second and third offenses for alcohol.”

Attorney General Gurbir Grewal issued a directive in December on dealing with juvenile offenses. It allows for cops to use “curbside warnings,” or informal, in-person warnings, to intercept some juvenile delinquencies. Parents are not notified when these occur.

Experts agree that harsh penalties weren’t working.

“What we know is that punishment or negative reinforcers do not change behavior so much. It’s more positive reinforcers,” said Kristine DeJesus, coordinator of Alcohol and Drug Program, Counseling and Psychological Services and a staff psychologist at Montclair State University.

“Students who don’t see alcohol use or drug use in their home are less likely to engage in high risk behavior,” she said.

Marijuana arrests disproportionately affected Black and brown teens, and research shows Black people are more likely to be arrested for alcohol-related offenses than white people — although white adolescents binge drink at higher rates.

The new system makes New Jersey one of the most lenient on underage drinking and marijuana use in the nation. But taking away arrests and fines likely won’t fuel more underage drinking and drug use.

Data hints that police may have already been letting many caught with alcohol off without warnings rather than arresting them. Underage drinking cases rarely end up in the court despite a wide use of alcohol among high school and college students.

In 2019, police issued 1,322 charges for underage drinking across the state to those 18 to 20 years old, according to the state judiciary. Courts dismissed 533 of those.

That’s fewer charges than police issued for marijuana possession each month prior to the law change.

These underage drinking cases were far more common at the Shore. Cape May County and Monmouth County combined saw 700 of the charges, while Middlesex County, home to Rutgers University, only had 38. Bergen and Essex counties, among the most populous in the state, saw only 55 and 39 arrests, respectively.

Only 183 charges were issued to juveniles — those under 18 — for drinking underage throughout the state that year.

Those account for only a small fraction of those who drink underage. In 2019, 7 million people between the ages of 12 and 20 said they had tried alcohol, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Police say the new warning system, which took effect immediately in February, creates challenges for them, too. They cannot search young people for alcohol or marijuana or detain them. If officers knowingly violate the new law, they could face a criminal charge of deprivation of civil rights. That carries fines and prison time of three to five years.

“I think our overall concern is there’s really no deterrent to a vulnerable population,” said John Zebrowski, vice president of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police.

“What would have been helpful would have been for us to be part of this discussion early on, so that we were able to provide the right discussion points to help lead our legislators in crafting it,” he said.

Zebrowski said police chiefs in Shore towns have additional concerns about enforcing underage drinking laws. They worry teenagers will come from Pennsylvania and New York and drink excessively at the Jersey Shore, receive warnings, and then return back to their home states without parents ever knowing.

It can also prove difficult to determine if a person seen with alcohol or marijuana is actually under 21. With the threat of a criminal charge in place, Zebrowski said police might be less likely to approach someone at all.

While less common than marijuana arrests, interactions with underage drinking can still escalate.

In 2018, police officers tackled and punched a 20-year-old woman on a Wildwood beach after they found her with an open container of alcohol. She sued, and the city settled the claim for $325,000.

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Amanda Hoover may be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj