Maryland Governor Wes Moore pardons 175,000 marijuana possession convictions

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is pardoning more than 175,000 marijuana convictions, his office announced Monday.

““I am honored to be with you in the historic Maryland State House, as together we make our own history.”, advertisement. “This morning, with deep pride and sobriety, I will forgive more than 175,000 convictions related to the possession of cannabis and cannabis paraphernalia.”

In a speech Monday writing the executive order, Moore described it as “the most comprehensive state-level pardon ever granted in any state in American history.”

Recreational cannabis will be legalized in Maryland in 2023 after voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2022 with 67% of the vote.

Maryland decriminalized the possession of quantities of cannabis for personal use on January 1, 2023. Now, 24 states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational cannabis.

“The Moore-Miller administration is committed to promoting social equity and ensuring the fair and equitable administration of justice,” the governor’s office said. And he expanded: “Because the use and possession of cannabis is no longer illegal in the state, Marylanders should no longer face barriers to accessing housing, employment or educational opportunities based on convictions for conduct that is no longer illegal.” .

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown described the pardons as “certainly long overdue as a nation” and “a matter of racial equity.” “While pardons will be extended to anyone with a misdemeanor conviction for possession of marijuana or paraphernalia, this unequivocally, without any doubt or reservation, disproportionately impacts, in a good way, Black and Brown Marylanders.” , he explained.

Even so, Moore emphasized that mass pardons will not “turn back the clock on decades of damage caused by this war on drugs.”“, particularly for the Black community, which has disproportionately borne the brunt of incarcerations.

“Legalization does not erase the fact that nearly half of all drug arrests in Maryland during the early 2000s were for cannabis. “It doesn’t erase the fact that black Marylanders were three times more likely to be arrested for cannabis than white Marylanders before legalization,” he said.

“It doesn’t erase the fact that having a conviction on your record means having a harder time on everything from housing to employment to education. “It doesn’t erase the fact that people who were arrested for cannabis three, four or 40 years ago still have those convictions on their records to this day.”

“We cannot celebrate the benefits of legalization if we do not address the consequences of criminalization,” he added.

According to local media, with this pardon, the Maryland judiciary will ensure that each individual electronic file is updated with an entry indicating that the conviction was pardoned by the governor, a process that should take approximately two weeks.

In turn, the state corrections department is also asked to develop a process to indicate a pardon on an individual’s criminal record, a process that is expected to take about 10 months to complete.

Keep reading:

• Opioid crisis: ‘Tranq’ is affecting many people and they fight to reverse overdoses
• Marijuana and increased risk of heart attack: what a new study says
• Abortion in the US: frozen embryos are considered children in Alabama