John SchroyerNew Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Friday appointed medical business executive Amelia Mapp, the wife of Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp, to replace an outgoing member of the state Cannabis Regulatory Commission.
Mapp is taking over for Commissioner Charles Barker, who is departing the agency after serving on the panel since 2021, where he developed a reputation for being critical of the Murphy administration’s efforts on social justice within the cannabis sector and of the outsized role that large corporations have taken in the state’s marijuana trade, NJ.com reported.
“The governor thanks Commissioner Barker for his service on the Cannabis Regulatory Commission over the past three and a half years and for his work establishing an equitable adult-use cannabis market in New Jersey, with social justice at the forefront,” a spokesperson for Murphy said in a statement Friday. “We look forward to Commissioner-designate Amelia Mapp continuing to build upon this important work on the Commission.”
Mapp must now be confirmed by the state Senate before she can formally take her post. Mapp is an executive with Spain-based medical device manufacturing company Ikaria, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The switch-out has dismayed several Black cannabis reform proponents, both NJ.com and the New Jersey Globe reported, who fear that Mapp won’t be as outspoken as Barker.
Barker was appointed after civil rights advocates expressed concern over the lack of Black men as members on the five-member commission, NJ.com reported. Barker’s departure means there will now be only one Black man serving in a senior position at the agency: Wesley McWhite III, the director of the office of diversity and inclusion. Mapp will be the second Black woman on the commission, after Chairwoman Dianne Houenou.
In a statement, the United Black Agenda and the New Jersey Legislative Black Caucus said they were “disappointed” in the decision to replace Barker with Mapp, but said they remained “confident” in Murphy’s leadership.
The influential Rev. Charles Boyer, pastor of Greater Mount Zion AME Church in Trenton and Co-Founder of Salvation and Social Justice, was more blunt and told the Globe he was “very disappointed that this Commission will lack the perspective of the number one demographic impacted by cannabis prohibition: Black men.”
“This is a case in point why progressives are losing Black male support,” Boyer told the Globe.
Cannabis activist Leo Bridgewater also told NJ.com that the installment of Mapp over Barker was “wrong,” and called the move “Trenton Statehouse trifling.”
