Expungement

The American Medical Association is calling on states that have legalized or decriminalized cannabis to expunge criminal records due to the overbearing impacts on potential physicians’ lives.  

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee (D) has signed the state’s adult-use legalization bill, making Rhode Island the 19th state in the union to legalize recreational cannabis.

Rhode Island lawmakers passed the state’s adult-use cannabis legalization bill on Tuesday. The bill includes provisions for homegrows and the automatic expungement of prior cannabis possession charges.

Cleveland, Ohio officials have filed motions to expunge over 4,000 cannabis-related criminal convictions dating back to 2017.

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives today passed the MORE Act to federally legalize cannabis in a bipartisan vote.

Montana’s Supreme Court has approved temporary rules for expunging or revising prior cannabis convictions as required by the state’s voter-approved adult-use cannabis law.

A Vermont bill would expand the list of crimes eligible for expungement, including low-level drug crimes and misdemeanor convictions but excluding violent crimes.

The Israeli government is considering a cannabis reforms package that would decriminalize personal possession and allow for the expungement of past offenses.

The Alabama Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill to decriminalize cannabis possession in the state and expunge prior cannabis charges.

Kentucky Democratic lawmakers filed a bill to legalize adult-use cannabis in the state and automatically expunge cannabis-related misdemeanor charges.

Two cannabis entrepreneurs in Ohio have announced upcoming expungement clinics on February 16 in Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, and Cleveland.

Montana courts are seeing lower-than-anticipated interest in the expungement of cannabis records following the state’s legalization launch.

Congressional Democrats are planning to take on numerous cannabis reform proposals during the upcoming legislative session, including banking, expungement, decriminalization, and social equity considerations.

A bipartisan cannabis bill by Reps. Dave Joyce (R) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) would offer grants to states and local governments to establish and improve cannabis expungement programs.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said lawmakers behind his federal cannabis bill want to ensure smaller businesses have access to the cannabis industry, that states expunge records for nonviolent cannabis crimes, and that funds generated go to restorative justice initiatives.

Arkansas advocates are gathering signatures to put a cannabis legalization constitutional amendment on next year’s ballot.

Medical cannabis patients in New York will soon be allowed to grow their own cannabis under new rules from the Office of Cannabis Management.

Sen. Mike Regan, who helped write Pennsylvania’s 2016 medical cannabis law, is circulating a memorandum seeking to add co-sponsors to a cannabis legalization bill.

The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement Act which removes cannabis from the federal schedule of controlled substances and expunges federal cannabis convictions.

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón and nonprofit The Social Impact Center identified nearly 60,000 cannabis convictions to be dismissed under criminal justice provisions of California’s cannabis legalization law.

President Biden received a letter this week signed by more than 150 celebrity entertainers, politicians, law enforcement officials, and advocates requesting clemency for federal cannabis offenders.

Since July, New Jersey courts have expunged at least 362,000 low-level cannabis-related criminal records and there are an estimated 125,000 to 150,000 similar cases that could be automatically expunged under the state’s legalization law.

Medical cannabis dispensaries in Minnesota are partnering with volunteer attorneys from St. Paul’s Mitchell Hamline School of Law to host expungement clinics and help people clear their records of nonviolent cannabis charges.