State officials are anticipated to provide legal relief in the coming weeks to tens of thousands of Minnesotans with low-level marijuana convictions on their records.
According representatives from the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, officials are in the process of expunging an estimated 66,000 misdemeanor marijuana convictions. The expungements could begin as soon as next month.
Legislation passed last year regulating the adult-use cannabis market also called for the automatic review and expungement of records for those previously convicted of certain marijuana-related violations.
As part of this process, a separate Cannabis Expungement Board has been established to review felony offenses on a case-by-case basis. Felony cannabis cases eligible for relief are likely to also number in the tens of thousands, the Board’s Executive Director Jim Rowader said.
Publicly available data compiled by NORML in January finds that state courts have either expunged or sealed the records of more than two million marijuana-related cases since 2018.
Last month, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announced blanket pardons for anyone who was ever convicted of a marijuana misdemeanor in the state. Governors of several other states — including Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Illinois, and Washington — have similarly granted over 100,000 thousand pardons to those with low-level marijuana convictions.
“Hundreds of thousands of Americans unduly carry the burden and stigma of a past conviction for behavior that most Americans, and a growing number of states, no longer consider to be a crime,” NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano said. “Our sense of justice and our principles of fairness demand that public officials and the courts move swiftly to right the past wrongs of cannabis prohibition and criminalization.”
Nationwide polling compiled by YouGov reports that nearly six in ten Americans support expunging marijuana-related convictions for non-violent offenses.
The full text of NORML’s report, Marijuana Pardons and Expungements: By the Numbers, is available online.