As the federal government continues to slowly move towards legalization of marijuana, some groups are looking towards the future. They are doing this in a number of ways, like seeking to change the laws. Others, however, are looking to undo what they see as injustices in anticipation of the legalization. For example, the Los Angeles County District Attorney, George Gascón, has reversed nearly 60,000 cannabis convictions.

Reasons

The reasons behind these reversals is that Gascón hopes to undo what he considers the “injustices of drug laws,” according to a news release posted Sept. 27, 2021. He felt that reversing these convictions “clears the path for them to find jobs, housing, and other services,” all of these were apparently denied to them as a result of these convictions.

Additionally, Lynne Lyman, former director of the Drug Policy Alliance, worked with the DA in supporting the reversal of these convictions. Lyman believed that this would help to “repair the past harms of the war on drugs and cannabis prohibition,” which Lyman said focused on people of color.

History

In 2020, lawmakers dismissed roughly 66,000 cannabis convictions after they passed the Assembly Bill 1793. However, those were focused on cases from the state Department of Justice data. As such, that left these now-reversed convictions to go forward until this year. Now, the DA has raised the total number of convictions overturned in California to nearly 125,000 in two years.

Benefits

These changes come soon after those performed by the US Department of Education on the FAFSA application.  Like with these conviction changes, the FAFSA changes were created to give those with prior drug convictions access to higher education. Also, the Council of Mayors, in early September, sought to push for the expungement of prior cannabis convictions.  It is the hope of activists that these changes will lead to more and, eventually, the federal legalization of cannabis.

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