San Francisco is Going to Dismiss Thousands of Marijuana Convictions

With the legalization of cannabis in the state, the local Justice system is also moving forward with decriminalizing the product. In a recent development, District Attorney of San Francisco has made an announcement that the city is going to close thousands of cannabis conviction cases in the following days.  

It is being said that the office of District Attorney is going to dismiss around 3,000 cases of cannabis misdemeanor. Around 5,000 cannabis-related felony cases will also be reviewed. Proposition 64 didn’t only legalize the use of recreational cannabis but also allowed the residents convicted of minor marijuana crimes to submit their petitions to get their cases dismissed or to reduce penalties. But according to the District Attorney, George Gascon, reviewing each case in detail will take time and consume resources so they have a plan to dismiss all the eligible cases collectively.   

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It is important to note that some cases are pending from 1975 and the state’s doesn’t want to stretch them any longer. Gascon also knows the implication of such misdemeanors and felonies on employment opportunities and other everyday dealings.  

According to the data furnished by the state, in the 10 months following the approval of Proposition 64, more than 5,000 people had submitted their applications to change their criminal records. But experts are of the belief that this number is just a fraction of the cases eligible to get reviewed in the light of Proposition 64.  

The office of District Attorney of San Francisco has received 23 review petitions since the approval of the legalization bill. Drug Policy Alliance is a non-profit pro-cannabis organization putting its efforts to stop the war on drugs in the US. According to their estimates, more than 100,000 people in the Golden state are qualified to submit a petition to change their records.  

Rob Bonta, a state representative and a Democrat from Oakland, has moved a bill in the California State Assembly last month. The bill entails an automatic removal of eligible records from all the county courts. If bill gets passed by the state legislature, then it will significantly help in getting rid of a large portion of backlog.

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Even though the legal states are moving to dismiss all the cannabis-related case of the past, the federal policies are being made quite in the opposite direction. In recent days, we have witnessed how Federal Justice Department annulled the Obama-era memo which limits the federal interference in the legalization affairs of the states. Experts fear that this will increase the rate of federal persecution related to cannabis, which is an illegal commodity under federal rules.  

As of now, more than half of the states have MMJ or adult-use programs in place and all of them have reacted strongly to this decision. We have yet to see how strictly the Department of Justice will act following this annulment. But it is pretty clear that legal states are not going to get intimidated by increased federal persecution.

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