A New Mexico judge ruled a detention center in Albuquerque cannot penalize qualifying medical marijuana patients for accessing cannabis while incarcerated. District Court Judge Lucy Solimon’s ruling concerns the case of Joe Montaño, who recently served a 90-day sentence in home confinement. During his incarceration, correctional officers found him in [...]
The governor of Illinois announced nearly half a million marijuana-related arrest records have been expunged, while a further 9,200 pardons have been issued for people with low-level cannabis convictions. The mass clemency drive comes one year after Illinois launched its legal market for adult-use marijuana on January 1, 2020. The [...]
A supermajority of Americans support expungement of marijuana-related criminal records, according to a new YouGov survey. The pollsters asked 7,141 adults if they “support or oppose expunging marijuana-related convictions for non-violent offenders?” Seven in ten of respondents favor the move, while 46 percent said they strongly support doing so. This [...]
Arizona’s voter-approved ballot initiative to legalize marijuana took effect on November 30, 2020, while most of the state’s elected county attorneys confirmed they’ve now dropped all cannabis possession cases. Prior to legalization, Arizona was one of a handful of states that allowed felony charges to be brought against a person [...]
A new program to help residents in Illinois who want to seal marijuana arrests or convictions from their criminal records has been launched with state funding. New Leaf Illinois will work under the auspices of the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation (IEJF), an organization that distributes state funds to legal aid [...]
As part of a broad criminal justice reform package, Michigan’s governor signed a bill into law that enables people with low-level cannabis convictions to have their records expunged. The new law goes into effect immediately. As well as House Bill 4982, Gov. Gretchen Wilmer (D) signed a raft of criminal [...]
The FBI reports that 2019 saw a fall in the number of marijuana-related arrests for the first time since 2015, but that the total still exceeds those made for all violent crimes combined. The data comes courtesy of the national Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program and is presented in the [...]
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order to pardon 2,732 people convicted of possessing up to one ounce of marijuana in the state prior to legalization in 2012. Gov. Polis’ action follows the General Assembly’s approval of a bill in June that included an amendment allowing the governor to [...]
Canadian law enforcement arrested four men who flew a helicopter at low altitude to smuggle cannabis across the US-Canada border. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ontario and Quebec made the arrests as part of a 16-month joint investigation with US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Ontario Provincial Police into [...]
Virginia lawmakers have been busy approving a raft of limited marijuana reform legislation during a special summer session, with full cannabis legalization also under consideration. So far in the session, the Virginia Senate passed a bill that would prohibit law enforcement from stopping and searching a vehicle, or seizing property, [...]