Where Candidates Stand on Cannabis in New Jersey 2025 Gubernatorial Races
From the absence of adult-use dispensary sales in the Old Dominion State to a home-grow ban in the Garden State, the stakes are high in the upcoming election.
While Virginia and New Jersey are the only two states to hold off-year elections for governor in 2025, the winners resemble far more than an early indicator for national politics: They represent what’s to come for their state’s respective cannabis policies.
In New Jersey, Democratic U.S. House Rep. Mikie Sherrill and former Republican state lawmaker Jack Ciattarelli are vying for the governor’s seat. Incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, is term-limited.
Murphy signed the state’s adult-use legalization bill in February 2021, after voters backed a legislatively referred constitutional amendment by a 67% majority the previous fall. While the 2021 legislation established a regulatory framework for a commercial program, it did not provide adults the freedom to grow their own plants at home.
Among the 24 states to legalize adult-use cannabis in the U.S., only four prohibit home grows for those 21 years and older: Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey and Washington. While Illinois and Washington allow qualified medical cannabis patients to grow cannabis plants, New Jersey and Delaware ban home cultivation for everyone.
New Jersey
Incumbent: Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, first elected in 2017, is term-limited and cannot seek re-election in November 2025.
2025 Candidates:
Mikie Sherrill (Democrat)
Jack Ciattarelli (Republican)
Poll: A poll of 1,238 likely New Jersey voters conducted Sept. 11-15 by Quinnipiac University showed Sherrill leading Ciattarelli by 8 points, 49% to 41%, with 4% undecided. The remaining percentage of those surveyed either refused to answer or supported third-party candidates.
Current Reform Status: Regulated adult-use (launched sales in April 2022) and medical cannabis programs.
What’s at stake? New Jersey’s next governor could help shape future policies around home cultivation, with the Garden State representing just one of four adult-use markets where those 21 and older cannot legally grow cannabis in their private residences.
Candidate Polices on Cannabis:
Mikie Sherrill currently serves in the U.S. House for New Jersey’s 11th District. She is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Navy helicopter pilot and a former federal prosecutor. A pro-cannabis candidate, Sherrill supports allowing medical cannabis patients and those 21 years and older to home cultivate cannabis under a framework of “common-sense regulations, safeguards and limits,” the New Jersey Monitor reported in March.
At the federal level, Sherrill voted in 2019 and 2021 in favor of passing the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, legislation that would deschedule and decriminalize cannabis by removing it from the Controlled Substances Act. She also voted multiple times in favor of passing the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, legislation that would bring safe harbor to depository institutions wishing to provide financial services to state-legal cannabis businesses.
Leading up to Ciattarelli’s unsuccessful 2021 bid for governor, when he lost to Murphy, 51% to 48%, Ciattarelli said in a debate that he supported decriminalization but opposed adult-use legalization. “We could have addressed social injustice with the decriminalization of marijuana, not the approval of recreational marijuana,” he said.
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