Expungement Is Next Hurdle
Bloomberg comments If States Legalize, Expungement Is Next Hurdle
Cannabis legalization is on the ballot in five states this Tuesday, and polling shows it’s likely to pass in most of them by a clear majority. What’s less clear is what happens to all the prisoners already incarcerated for possessing something that’s now legal.
Even if a state passes an expungement law, there’s the added challenge of actually locating prisoners. Some county-level records are still in paper form, said Sarah Gersten, executive director of the Last Prisoner Project, a non-profit that estimates there are 40,000 U.S. cannabis prisoners and aims to free every one of them. Meanwhile, prisoners still languish in jail in states that have already legalized sales. “There are thousands of people still incarcerated for cannabis offenses in California, Michigan, Colorado and Oregon,” Gersten said, citing around 2,000 alone in Michigan as of this year.
Three of the four states voting on recreational use are red ones: Arizona, Montana and South Dakota. Medical use is on the ballot in Mississippi and South Dakota.
Another Republican Pox
Trump bashed Biden repeatedly for legislation passed over 20 years ago that resulted in black incarceration.
But what did Trump do about it?
Cannabis policy of the Donald Trump administration
Trump could have and should have supported cannabis legalization and expungement.
Instead, please consider the Cannabis policy of the Donald Trump Administration.
The Donald Trump administration has taken positions against marijuana and the easing of laws regarding marijuana. Although Trump indicated during his 2016 presidential campaign that he favored leaving the issue of legalization of marijuana to the states, his administration subsequently upheld the federal prohibition of cannabis, and Trump’s 2021 fiscal budget proposal proposed removing protections for state medical marijuana laws. In 2018, the administration rescinded the 2013 Cole Memorandum, an Obama-era Justice Department policy that generally directed federal prosecutors not to pursue marijuana prosecutions in states where marijuana is legal as a matter of state law.
Mish
What is, “Cheech and Chong up in smoke?”, Alex!
I just hope they allow home grow, looks like a fun hobby.
The federal government desperately needs to raise revenue to cover the $27T deficit. Legalizing and subsequently taxing marijuana would seem to be an obvious choice. As you can tell I am not yet drinking the Kool Aid With respect to MMT and not entirely in love with the idea of legalizing drugs but I do think we need to take a good hard look at the Portugal model and figure out if it really works. Goodness knows how many lives have been lost or ruined by the drug trade and we are certainly not winning the war on drugs.
I’m 73 and herb vaping pot for 3 years. It’s completely harmless the way I use it, since there are no combustion products. Absolutely not addictive, unlike the coffee I drink. I don’t need the government to decide for me. Unless you’ve used it, your opinion is worthless.
What vape do you use? My Storz & Bickel has really changed the experience for the better.
DaVinci.
We are being turned into a nation of drug addicts, legal and illegal.
This nation is seriously sick.
is that better or worse than being a debt addict? i suspect you are one who espouses freedom just not personal freedom.
I’m in favor of medical marijuana but not recreational use
Sounds less sinful.
Medical marijuana and recreational marijuana is usually the same marijuana. The difference is that in one instance you have to pay a physician for a prescription. AFAIK that is the only difference.
The difference is, you ENJOYED it. Our puritan ancestors frown on that.
The use is different.
I think generally the government should stay out of our personal decisions unless there is such a detriment to general society that it is necessary. Given what I have seen between alcohol users and pot users is that alcohol users tend more towards violence that pot users. Hence why the onus on pot users?
What’s your abortion stance?
Let a woman make her own decision. I have no idea what it would be like to be in her shoes.
OK, you are anti-both choice and fun.
I get the issues. Minorities getting caught often lack the resources to fight the charge and therefore more likely to not get bail, lose their job and take plea deals. But there is a cost. Even if legal companies can still have policies against drug use and employees could get caught up and lose their job even if the use was outside the job. I think many states see marijuana as a revenue source and not fully considering the costs including more drug use and users moving on to harder drugs
It’s almost as if you’re suggesting our USA govt doesn’t represent the people.
The True Cost of Marijuana: A Colorado Town That Went All-In https://link.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/the-true-cost-of-marijuana-a-colorado-town-that-went-all-in_3546091.html
Download our app to read more for free at https://ept.ms/DownloadApp
After pot is legalized, it will be taxed. The upside is pot might take the anger out of rioters.
Lol, a couple of south facing windows, potting soil and a watering can and no one needs to pay any taxes.
Texas present day MJ Law is all about how much…..a few plants in a South facing window (actually maybe a north facing window here might be better) would make you run afoul of the level of punishment below.
Possession of between 4 ounces and 5 lbs. of marijuana is a state jail felony, punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence of 180 days imprisonment, a maximum of 2 years imprisonment, and a fine not to exceed $10,000.”
You’d lose your right to vote, to own a firearm, and probably have hard time finding decent work, since everybody does background checks now.
I has gotten better. There were people who got life in prison for a joint here.
But if their preferred drug is cocaine then it will be enhanced. If it’s crack then watch out.
Marijuana is to cocaine as a fish is to a bicycle. These tired old dogs just won’t hunt, Doug.
And…..the truth is….you just can’t legislate morals. Whether people use drugs, and what drugs they use, is not something the government can effectively control. Just look at the fine results of forty years of Nancy Reagan drug policy.
You see how your 3 billion a year is being spent? Knocking down doors of innocent people too many times……and really pissing off people who live in places like Baltimore and Philly and St.Louis…..mostly people who aren’t white, btw….which just makes the race wars everybody is worried about that much more likely.
Conservatives need to get a clue about reality and quit fear-mongering. Otherwise it just gets worse instead of better.
Conservatives are completely uninterested in rights and 100% invested in their privilege.
Eddie, dogs still hunt. I was comparing behaviour under cocaine to behaviour under pot and you give me a morality talk. We should decriminalise all drugs and allow them to be sold to anyone and everyone without restriction. Cartels will become responsible businessmen who are concerned about their customers and the prices will drop because of competition. Are you in or are just for the allowing the drug you prefer? In the 19th Century no drugs were illegal. Why not going back to it? Do you have a “line not to cross” and if so where is it and why?
No, I’m willing to go full libertarian on all drugs…it would become a self-limiting problem. Herd immunity if you will.
I also had a misspent youth…..I was saved from cocaine by poverty. Fortunately crack came along after I grew up, and I was past all that by then.
This is Austin….Gram Parsons was once interviewed on COKE Radio…..one of my patients used to talk about his days working for Armadillo World Headquarters in the 70’s…and the guys he called the cocaine cowboys. He’s dead now, but he gifted me with some art he made.
I misunderstood your position. Forgive me.
Research suggests that smoking marijuana carries many of the same cardiovascular health hazards as smoking tobacco.
By Jane E. Brody
Oct. 26, 2020
Do you have the heart to safely smoke pot? Maybe not, a growing body of medical reports suggests.
Currently, increased smoking of marijuana in public, even in cities like New York where recreational use remains illegal (though no longer prosecuted), has reinforced a popular belief that this practice is safe, even health-promoting.
You don’t have to smoke it… you can eat it.
Stomach cancer then.
The D.A.R.E. people really did a number on you ….
There is no research like marijuana research.
If you want to understand how science can be a slave to politics, look no further than the body of knowledge on pot. There is no shortage of peer reviewed literature that makes pot look like a gateway drug to fentanyl, causes cancer, and robs otherwise normal people of all their motivation to get up and go to work in the morning.
Smoke is smoke. I doubt pot smoke is good for you, but nowadays there are alternatives, several of them, to actually SMOKING pot.
I don’t view pot as health-promoting…..other than for certain specific maladies…but I do think that as habit-forming vices go, it has much to recommend it, compared to say, alcohol and cigarettes…both of which are still widely available.
There are no Researches, what you read are biased government sponsored papers to support war on drugs and marijuana. Smoking marijuana is not same as tobacco, you just need to gulp only once or twice or maybe few more to get high in a day or week. whereas in tobacco you are an addict and smoke 1 pack everyday. Tobacco intake of an addict is 1000 times more than a marijuana smoker.
This 2,500-Year-Old Mummy Was Found Covered In Mysterious Tattoos And Holding A Satchel Of Weed
Time traveller from L.A. maybe.
I am 67 years old and did a lot of stuff when I was young but stopped it when I grew a brain. In my work I had to deal with many young and not so young people who got into to using drugs to enhance their work performance and give them an edge. I saw so many crack, crash and burn and then kicked out of the industry as their usefulness was gone. Pot’s not a problem but it does make you spacey. Harder stuff should be illegal. By the way Washington DC has the most cocaine detected in wastewater per habitat in the world by far. That should make you think.
Oregon is looking at decriminalizing ALL drug offenses, in the Portugal model…..which is well proven now. As much as I could criticize so many things I don’t like about Oregon…this is EXACTLY what works…and I am glad to see it coming.
The problem is that we have a huge entrenched anti-drug bureaucracy that benefits from asset seizures and big legislated budgets. Ten thousand jobs in the DEA. More than 3 billion in assets seized (no proof of a crime needed) over ten years time (from 2007 to 2017)….nearly 3 billion a year in budget.
And pot? Pot will win. Because Americans are getting poorer, if nothing else. Life is getting harder for working stiffs.
And as Gilbert Shelton once said:
“Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.”
You’re hitting homeruns today Eddie.
Expungement doesn’t necessarily follow from legalization. While I support expungement, there is the thorny issue of having broken a duly-enacted law even if that law is immoral to most.
What is really bizarre is the distinct likelihood that pot will be legal in all 50 states but illegal in the USA. Congress needs to fix this idiocy and join the human race already.
Will never happen as long as that money rolls in from Altria and Anheiser Busch
Yeah, elected officials should be forced to wear NASCAR uniforms.
It is not a thorny issue. When a duly-enacted law is found to be wrong, or it is decided that it is wrong, the charges that originate from it are deemed baseless. You would have to prove that there was reason for the law to have been previously enacted which are no longer applicable now, and beyond political or societal sentiment which are both arbitrary measures unsuitable as justification in the application of force.
The trouble is that the change of position throws justice into disrepute, undermining its credibility, a credibility that is essential to its existence. Though justice follows law handed down to it, there is no denying that it is a living initiative comprised of real people who are ultimately personally responsible for the sentences they dictate, soon to be seen as no more than minions of state power ?
I agree with your point of view. However, convincing establishment apologists that erstwhile criminal behavior should be forgiven is a real hurdle that can’t be ignored and is not easily dismissed.
I see a future where minor drug convictions are expunged in blue states. Not in red states. Not at the federal level. Not until Congress acts.
I think the quote was ‘Dope will get you to times of no money and no dope will get you to times of money.”
I remember very well the Freak Brothers having devoured their comics in college. They are role models to all of us which probably explains the state of the country come to think of it.