Nearly 2 million cannabis convictions expunged in the U.S. in the last 5 years

According to a new analysis by NORML, a U.S. pro-legalization organization, U.S. states have expunged nearly 2 million convictions for minor cannabis-related offenses over the past 5 years.

Federal interest in expunging cannabis convictions has grown since President Joe Biden granted a mass pardon for cannabis offenses in October, pardoning several thousand Americans who had committed federal possession offenses and encouraging the governors of the various U.S. states to follow the administration’s example.

While human rights advocates view the president’s action as a step in the right direction, its scope is very limited, largely because the vast majority of cannabis cases are handled at the state level and therefore fall outside the president’s jurisdiction.

Some governors issued amnesties in the weeks following Joe Biden’s mass pardon, but many other local and state officials had already taken similar steps even before the president acted.

A recent report published by NORML last week examines public data from the United States, showing how officials have granted approximately 100,000 pardons and expunged 1.7 million criminal records since 2018.

Among the states that have already taken action on this issue, Nevada, under Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak, pardoned more than 15,000 people who had been convicted of minor cannabis possession offenses in 2020.

In 2019, Washington State’s Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, announced that individuals with criminal records containing convictions for minor cannabis possession offenses would be eligible for expedited pardons. He estimated that 3,500 Washington residents would be eligible for this relief.

One day before the legal sale of cannabis began in Illinois in 2020, Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker announced that his office had granted pardons to more than 11,000 people who had previously been convicted of simple possession of cannabis.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D), announced last year that it had granted 1,351 pardons for convictions involving the possession of two ounces or less of cannabis (56 grams). Previously, he had signed an executive order granting nearly 3,000 pardons to individuals convicted of possessing a ounce of cannabis or less.

The governor of the’Oregon recently granted a mass pardon for state-level cannabis possession offenses, which will provide relief to approximately 45,000 people—a decision she described as «a true act of clemency» and which was praised by Biden.

«Although amnesties offer a certain level of forgiveness for past crimes, they are not the same as expungements, which remove past convictions from public view,» states the NORML report. «To facilitate this, lawmakers in many states have enacted laws in recent years that provide explicit pathways to expunge the criminal records of those convicted of minor cannabis-related offenses.»

«In some cases, individuals eligible for debt relief are not required to take any action,» he continues the report. «Instead, state officials automatically review past records and notify those who meet the state’s criteria for expungement. In other cases, state law requires individuals seeking to have their criminal records expunged to file a petition with the courts so that their records can be reviewed and expunged.»