A cannabis plant grows in the Amsterdam Cannabis College, a non profit charitable organization that gives information on cannabis and hemp use on February 7, 2007 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
News By, Michael Adkison on https://krcgtv.com
JEFFERSON CITY — Following the Secretary of State’s announcement last week that Missouri voters will decide on legalizing recreational marijuana this November, advocates are drawing attention to another key component of the ballot measure: automatically expunging the nonviolent marijuana-related charges of Missourians’ criminal records.
If passed, Missouri would be the twentieth state to legalize the drug, but it would be the first to allow voters to decide on expunging those records.
“The proposal would allow for the automatic expungement of pretty much all nonviolent marijuana offenses,” John Payne, the campaign director for Legal Missouri 2022, told KRCG 13. Legal Missouri 2022 is the organization behind the initiative petition. “This would be the first initiative in the country that has had an automatic expungement provision.”
Other states have expunged criminal records on similar grounds but never before by a popular vote; rather, those policies were approved by legislative efforts.
Expungement has also been previously permitted on a case-by-case basis in Missouri, Sarah Owsley, the advocacy director at Empower Missouri, said, but that effort took time, effort, and finances to afford it. Instead, this policy would be an automatic process for Missourians convicted of marijuana-related charges.
“Under this new law, defendants will not need to lift a finger,” Dan Viets, a Columbia attorney and the Missouri coordinator for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML. “We thought it was very important to try to not only stop the damage of marijuana prohibition but to actually go back and undo some of that damage.”
Empower Missouri was one of the first advocacy organizations to back the proposal, specifically, as Owsley told KRCG 13, because of the expungement language.
“Having a criminal record limits your access to higher paying jobs, volunteering at your kids’ schools,” she said. “We really hope that we can use this as an example moving forward to automate the expungement of lots of other criminal records that would potentially be eligible for expungement.”
H/T: https://krcgtv.com
You can view the whole article at this link Marijuana legalization proposal would wipe weed-related charges from criminal records By, Michael Adkison on https://krcgtv.com
