Now that Governor Phil Murphy has signed off on legislation legalizing recreational marijuana in New Jersey, experts say the market infrastructure and regulations should be in place by early next year. Once that happens, the Cannabis Regulatory Commission can begin licensing recreational businesses. Until then, medical marijuana dispensaries will handle initial sales, and the state Department of Health is considering increasing the number of licensed dispensaries.

Under the new law, established when Murphy signed a trio of bills on February 22, New Jersey residents age 21 and over can purchase and possess up to six ounces of marijuana. While it won’t be legal to smoke it in public, people will be able to smoke it privately and in “consumption lounges” where they supply their own.

Murphy, who became governor in 2018, made the legalization of recreational marijuana a major platform of his campaign for the office, but it took three years of legislative wrangling for him to fulfill his promise. The day he signed the bills into law, he reiterated the ethical reasons that underpinned his support for the policy:

“As of this moment, New Jersey’s broken and indefensible marijuana laws, which permanently stained the records of many residents and short-circuited their futures, and which disproportionately hurt communities of color and failed the meaning of justice at every level, social or otherwise, are no more.”

Murphy signed the bills after a provision was added establishing civil penalties for anyone under 21 caught with marijuana.