This made good sense for several reasons:

• Most marijuana convictions were for non-violent, low-level offenses.
• Minorities and the economically disadvantaged were greatly disproportionately impacted by marijuana laws.
• To right the injustice of people now making good money (it’s a multi-billion dollar industry in California) for the same activity that previously sent others to prison.

But despite this and a 2018 law passed with the intention of speeding up the process for tens of thousands of Californians still stuck grappling with felony and misdemeanor marijuana convictions on their record, our Riverside marijuana lawyers know that the process has been slow-going. This fact was confirmed by a recent Los Angeles Times investigation.

It’s worth noting that the process was never going to be fully automatic. But at this point, there are still an estimated 34,000 people in the state with marijuana crimes on their record that haven’t been processed for the clean slate they deserve. There were twice that many before last August, which is when the Times started raising questions about why it was taking so long (presumably lighting a fire under officials to prioritize the effort).

It appears the primary bottleneck in the process that involves 58 prosecutors’ offices and the state Department of Justice is the courts. Some counties have been working with a fair amount of diligence to clear records for people in their communities. In total, 117,000 cases have been processed in California. Others, however, have been incredibly slow. For example, in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, not a single case has been processed. Others, like Kern County, are only at 18 percent.

AB 1793 was supposed to help clear prior marijuana convictions en masse, allowing counties to bypass the need to take every case to court via individual petition. The goal was to deliver these rights to people without making them jump through a dozen hoops to obtain relief. But while most district attorneys complied with the deadline for submitting the estimated 192,000 eligible cases to the courts, the courts weren’t given a deadline to process them. That’s where most all of these cases are stuck – despite the fact that courts received nearly $17 million from the state to get the job done.

Officials with the courts pin the blame on COVID, staff shortages, case management systems that are outdated, and older records that necessitate manual reviews. But it’s not difficult to see delays as a continuing pattern of disparate justice for people of color. In San Berndardino County alone, some 5,400 cannabis convictions are pending. In San Bernardino, another 21,000.

A clean slate is more than simply a self-esteem issue. Criminal convictions for cannabis offenses – particularly at the felony level – can result in individuals being turned down for jobs, certain types of licensure, housing, higher education, and other opportunities. In at least a couple of cases, individuals were jailed and falsely accused of felonies because their marijuana convictions at the local or state level hadn’t been updated.

For those who still have outstanding criminal records, working with an experienced marijuana lawyer to petition the court to expedite the processing of your case may be advantageous for those who need their case to be cleared faster (usually for work, school, or housing).

The Los Angeles CANNABIS LAW Group represents growers, dispensaries, labs, ancillary companies, patients, doctors and those facing marijuana charges. Call us at 949-375-4734.

Additional Resources:

California was supposed to clear cannabis convictions. Tens of thousands are still languishing, Jan. 13, 2022, By Kiera Feldman, The Los Angeles Times

now officially the first former-Soviet Union nation to lift such a ban, according to a report from Newsweek. The change came down from a decision from the country’s constitutional court, which determined punishment for consuming marijuana is only applicable if a third party is at risk. By revoking the right of officials to punish individuals for consumption of marijuana, the court in essence made it legal.

The court did not appear to take a stance one way or another as to whether marijuana was dangerous or not. At the heart of the ruling, in fact, is the idea that it is not up to the law to punish people who are not hurting others. If the only person potentially experiencing harm by the use of cannabis is the user, then the government has no business interfering. The court deemed this to be a restriction of individual freedom. While this ruling still implies that there is harm that one could do to oneself by using marijuana, it does get to the heart of one of the many arguments in favor of legalization: Shouldn’t people be able to make personal decisions so long as they are not harming others?

This is the same thought process behind why we allow people to make bad food choices, even though heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the U.S. Food choices are an individual freedom, and moderation is up to the individual to monitor, even with studies that show some highly processed foods are intentionally engineered to be addictive in nature. Sugar has been shown to cause similar changes in the brain as addictive drugs, especially in regards to the release of dopamine. Yet we eat it regularly and even allow children to consume it with little thought. Alcohol is readily available to adults, even though we know 17.6 million people in the U.S. suffer from alcohol abuse or addiction. Each year, excessive alcohol use is attributed to the death of 88,000 in this country. National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence drew out the statistics even further: 40 percent of non-maternity hospital beds in the U.S. go to patients who need treatment for health conditions related to consuming alcohol. Meanwhile the number of marijuana overdoses documented in the U.S. is holding steady at zero, making it more perplexing why our leaders are still so hung up on outdated propaganda.

With cultivation and sales of marijuana remaining illegal in Georgia, our Riverside marijuana lawyers can explain there is still a legal gray area for those consuming cannabis, as there would be no way to obtain it other than illicit means. It is, however, the first big step toward broader legalization efforts. Once countries acknowledge there’s no compelling reason why people cannot use marijuana, it doesn’t take long to realize the benefits a cannabis economy could have. Uruguay lifted marijuana bans and implemented a heavily regulated marketplace in an attempt to gain control of increasingly violent criminal activity centered on drug trafficking. Canada has followed, allowing recreational use, cultivation, and sales nationwide beginning in October. Now that 30 states and Washington, D.C., have made at least medical marijuana legal in the U.S., it’s time for our country to follow suit and lift marijuana’s federal ban.

The Los Angeles CANNABIS LAW Group represents growers, dispensaries, collectives, patients, defendants, workers and those facing criminal marijuana charges. Call us at 949-375-4734.

Additional Resources:

5 Foods That are Actually Addictive — and How to Avoid Them, Oct. 2, 2017, By Keri Glassman, R.D., Today

More Blog Entries:

O, Cannabis: Canada Passes Adult-Use Marijuana, June 29, 2018, Cannabis Law Group