well recreational Cannabis has been legal in the state for more than two years but it's still a crime if you want to grow it yourself despite a number of attempts by lawmakers to push through a homeg grow bill on Monday Governor Murphy signal he's open to the idea something he's only implied in the past but what will it take politically to get there senior political correspondent David Cruz reports in the time it's taken for the New Jersey cannabis Market to get up and running you could have grown your household's very own Supply but that would be illegal and subject you to five years in prison after almost three years is this the Cannabis future we all imagined if you're a small business and you get a license to open a retail dispensary you can only buy your wholesale product from like four or five giant corporations some of these companies have operated here in New Jersey for more than a decade they've been operating medical marijuana companies and they've charged $60 and $70 an a for more than 10 years that's $500 an ounce and most regular users will tell you that the quality is not top shelf if this is your medicine $500 an ounce starts to add up in Most states where weed is legal to buy there's an allowance for a certain amount of homegrown but here in Jersey that's a felony activists Jay Lasser and others have pushed for legalized home grown for years we're still fighting for hom grow which is available in every other state and I believe that's a very lwh hanging fruit so the fact that Trenton politicians still haven't gotten around to doing anything about it yet um I think it proves just how sort of dysfunctional Trenton is and their inability to actually accomplish really easy stuff that would help a lot of people so when Governor Murphy recently told news2 that he was open-minded about supporting homegrown it raised hopes I would bet if I were a betting man that down the road that that's exactly what where this would land I understand having said that why it wasn't in our initial regs because I think there there's a rightful um objective to get this industry up on its feet uh and and make sure that the folks who are in this as a matter of Commerce are successful and again with a huge amount of focus on Equity except the governor open-minded or not do doesn't really post the bills necessary to allow for that the Senate President does and he says allowing home cultivation would impact the state's still nent cannabis industry Senator Vin goal's been working on getting the Senate President to post a bill this is my bill it has bipartisan support I've talked to the Senate President uh about a week or two ago uh he's he's still not there I'm going to continue to Lobby him that this is not going to impact the industry I appreciate the governor coming out um hom grow can impact a lot of folks especially medical patients Senator Troy Singleton has a bill that would legalize homegrown for medical patients he says the high prices are just unacceptable I think we've tried to give the CRC to cannabis Regulatory Commission excuse me an opportunity to through its uh regulatory powers to try and put some pricing uh controls in place and I think now quite honestly I think it's now time for the legislature because I don't think the RC has done um enough in that regard to maybe interject uh some price controls in this space try getting that past the Senate President who remains the industry's biggest champion despite Skeptics now wondering aloud how the equity and access promised by legal weed has yet to be delivered I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight News NJ Spotlight News