JACKSON – Township officials, well known for their strong support of their police department and law enforcement in general, approved a resolution that their chief of police, Matthew Kunz had presented to them, that calls for strong modifications to current legislation pertaining to enforcement of underage marijuana use.
During a recent council meeting, the resolution was discussed among the members of council and Mayor Michael Reina which criticizes the state’s new marijuana law regulations. Members of law enforcement agencies say they will make policing tougher and reduce the overall quality of life in the Jersey Shore.
The message also echoes one voiced by the Ocean County Police Chiefs Association which held a rally on the boardwalk in Point Pleasant Beach last month. They were joined by elected officials and several police chiefs who fear it will be Ocean County’s resort communities who will be the first to feel the impact of legal weed.
Chief Kunz was among the law enforcement representatives present for that presentation. He told The Jackson Times that “it metaphorically handcuffs us from doing our jobs.” The law prevents police from investigating underage drinking and marijuana use. If an officer tried to do so, they would be charged with a third-degree offense.
“It prevents us from doing our job and inhibits parents from their right to know what their children are doing. Beyond that there is the removal of qualified immunity in law enforcement. They also want to remove protection during a good faith investigation and allow you to be sued for just pursuing an investigation,” the chief.
He noted that qualified immunity is something that judges and legislators also have. He said it is “a reasonable protection that exists and there is no reason it should be denied for law enforcement. If you do something wrong or illegal law enforcement officers will still be accountable. There is no reason to remove this form of protection from them other than it being a misguided attack on law enforcement.”
Chief Kunz said that such moves are harming recruitment of new police officers. “Paterson has made a public statement that their recruitment is down. Some 75% of applicants that they made job offers to have declined. It used to be that you couldn’t get in fast enough anywhere, now people are turning jobs down in record numbers because of the light that law enforcement is being cast in. There is a public perception problem there too. We’re trying to overcome all of that.”
Regarding the impact of the legalization of marijuana and some of the hidden costs, the chief said, “you need to train and retrain officers and you need more drug recognition experts to identify drivers who are impaired by things other than alcohol and that is an undertaking which has to be funded. There are social costs to this.”
He noted that for certain police departments and the Ocean County Sheriff’s Office who have K-9 units there is the problem of having to retire the K-9 officers or retrain them for use in tracking.
“You can no longer train them as a drug dog because you can’t tell it to stop detecting marijuana but not heroin during investigations. Do you want to invest in a dog that can detect marijuana when you may not have in your own jurisdiction, a number of investigations that justify marijuana trained dogs? This whole process wasn’t very well thought out,” the chief told The Jackson Times.
Councilman Nino Borrelli commented, “I’ve been reading about the new recreational marijuana law and I am very concerned about it. I think these laws are undoubtedly going to affect the quality of life in Jackson. It will make the town police officers’ jobs much harder particularly the provision of it where the police search of a child for possible possession of this substance could result in a third-degree crime charge. Officers are prohibited from notifying parents.
“It’s all in the name of social justice. That’s malarkey,” he said. “They will stop at nothing. It is alarming, appalling and sickening. Slowly we are seeing the erosion of parental rights in New Jersey.”
He went on to say that the state has “gone on to become the hub of harmful leftist experimentation indoctrination. Didn’t the legislature read the recreational marijuana bill they so highly coveted when they passed this law and the governor when he signed it? To the JTPD (Jackson Township Police Department) we want to let them know that we are here to help them out on the council to combat the new recreational marijuana law so we can maintain a good quality of life in Jackson which is always our focus.”
The resolution called for the immediate repeal of Senate Bill 3454 “enthusiastically seconded, yes,” Borelli said as he and the members of council moved to unanimously vote to approve it.
“We shouldn’t even need this, yes,” Council President Andrew Kern said casting his vote in disgust of the marijuana laws.
