New Jersey state senator Brian Stack has introduced a bill that would ban recreational marijuana use — even off the clock — for police officers, first responders, commercial truck drivers and heavy-equipment operators across the state. The measure lands just months after an appellate court sided with two Jersey City police officers who were fired over off-duty cannabis use, raising the question of whether this new push can survive where that city's policy failed.
What Senate Bill S4685 Would Actually Do
Stack introduced Senate Bill S4685 on October 1, according to a legal analysis from Ogletree, which describes the bill as barring law enforcement officers, first responders, CDL drivers and operators of heavy equipment from using cannabis recreationally, whether on duty or off. The law firm's analysis says covered employers could take punitive action, run random drug tests and refuse to hire applicants over recreational cannabis use, and that evidence of prohibited use could be established simply by the presence of cannabinoid metabolites in an employee's bodily fluid — meaning a positive test from off-duty use could count against someone even though metabolites can linger long after any impairment has worn off. The bill defines heavy equipment as machinery weighing 5,000 pounds or more, or any vehicle that requires a CDL, per the same analysis.
An identical companion bill, A5649, was introduced in the Assembly on October 19 by Assemblyman Larry Wainstein, according to Forbes, with both measures still pending. News 12 New Jersey reports the two bills, introduced last month, were referred to public safety committees, and that to become law the proposal must still clear two committees, a floor vote, and approval from Gov. Mikie Sherrill. News 12 also reported it had not yet received responses after reaching out to Wainstein and Stack for comment.
Why This Collides With CREAMMA
New Jersey has allowed adults of legal age to buy marijuana products at licensed dispensaries since legalizing recreational sales in 2022, and the state's Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization Act generally bars employers from requiring workers to abstain from legal recreational use while off the clock, according to the same Ogletree analysis. That protection is exactly what collided with Jersey City's own policy, which had banned police marijuana use both on and off duty. Two Jersey City police officers sued after being fired for off-the-clock cannabis use and won, with a state appellate court ruling on May 1 that their terminations violated state law and upholding Civil Service Commission orders reinstating them, according to nj.com. The outlet reported the court found that CREAMMA bars discipline solely for off-duty, regulated cannabis use — including for law enforcement officers — unless there is evidence of on-duty impairment. Forbes separately noted the appellate court affirmed decisions ordering the officers' reinstatement after they tested positive for cannabis.
A Legal Fight That Predates This Bill
This isn't the first attempt to carve police and safety-sensitive workers out of the state's cannabis protections. Back in 2022, Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald floated a plan to bar New Jersey police officers from off-duty marijuana use or at least study the issue, according to a 2022 nj.com report, and Marijuana Moment reported that lawmakers that year had filed three separate bills generally seeking to restrict off-duty marijuana use for select employees, with one proposal that would have let law enforcement agencies penalize officers for cannabis use, run random tests and refuse to hire applicants over lawful use.
Former New Jersey legislator John Wisniewski told News 12 the new bill faces real hurdles and may have to wait for science to catch up, noting that a marijuana impairment test comparable to an alcohol breathalyzer does not currently exist. He added that the bill would affect a large swath of people in the state, including both emergency-services providers and the people who rely on them. New Jersey State PBA President Pete Andreyev, meanwhile, said on-duty professional standards should not come at the expense of police officers' lawful off-duty rights.
What the Science Actually Says About Impairment
The debate over testing isn't just a legal technicality — it's rooted in a real gap in cannabis science. The National Safety Council states plainly that the presence of THC or its metabolites in blood, saliva, urine or breath does not by itself establish current impairment, even as a 2024 literature review it cites found THC-containing products were associated with slower reaction time and impaired attention, learning and working memory in healthy volunteers. The council also cites 2024 data showing 15.9% of full-time employed adults used cannabis in the past month and 6.5% met criteria for cannabis use disorder, alongside a 2025 analysis finding about 8% of all workers, and 21% of past-year cannabis consumers, said they had used cannabis shortly before or at work. A CDC/NIOSH bulletin adds that the current body of literature does not provide sufficient evidence that marijuana users face increased or decreased risk of occupational injury — underscoring just how unsettled the underlying science remains even as lawmakers try to legislate around it.
