Joe Biden proposes federal help to erase cannabis-related criminal records

Joe Biden, presumptive Democratic nominee for U.S. president, explained on Tuesday that criminal records stemming from cannabis convictions represented a major systemic barrier and had a disproportionate impact on communities of color.

At a speech on racial equity and the economy, the former vice president declared that «getting busted for cannabis when you're young surely shouldn't deprive you, for the rest of your life, of having a well-paying job or a career. or a loan or renting an apartment.»

«Right now, this criminal record is a burden that holds back too many people of color, as well as many whites,» he said, adding that the process of erasing these records can be «complicated and expensive in states where the records are kept.»

Biden, who hasn't included cannabis legalization on his agenda and is no stranger to crafting some anti-drug legislation when he was in the Senate, said more states should «recognize the significant costs to their economies of people with non-violent criminal records who can't fully contribute to their full capacity.».

The mechanisms for clearing records in the USA depend on each state and are often extremely complex, far from being automated.

«Under my plan, if a state decides it wants to implement an automated system for closing or expunging criminal records for nonviolent offenses, if a state chooses to do that, the federal government will help set up the process and give them money to be able to organize and make it happen.»

«This is what racial equity must look like in our economy,» he declared.

We can't build this nation back better without tackling the systemic racism and disparities that have plagued our country for far too long. That's why today, I'm releasing my new plan to advance racial economic equity across the American economy. https://t.co/MQW8ItM0J8

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- Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 28, 2020

The new racial equity plan that Biden launched on Tuesday states that it will «make the possibility of a second chance real for all Americans, by helping states modernize their criminal justice data infrastructure and adopt automated record expungement, for certain categories of non-violent offenses.».