On the West Coast, legislators have been working to enact social justice reform by giving individuals who were previously convicted of cannabis-related crimes to clear their records. California's Proposition 64 allows anyone with cannabis convictions to apply to have their records cleared, and several West Coast cities — from San Diego to Seattle — have even gone so far as to automatically clear former convictions. Last year, Colorado passed a bill allowing those convicted of pot misdemeanors to apply to have their records cleared, and Oregon is considering a similar bill, as well.
As the wave of legalization spreads east, politicians in several East Coast states are also beginning to consider ways to right the wrongs of prohibition. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, who has promised to legalize recreational weed in the Garden State this year, is considering using his executive powers to pardon former cannabis offenders. And in neighboring Pennsylvania, legislators have proposed a new bill that would allow anyone to clear a former cannabis offense if they can prove that they were using marijuana for medical purposes.
Gov. Murphy has been pushing his state's Legislature to advance a bill to legalize taxed and regulated cannabis sales this year, but lawmakers have so far been reticent to embrace the concept of legal weed. Murphy said that his primary motivation for legalizing is to correct the "social injustice" caused by the decades-long War on Drugs, which disproportionately targeted minorities and low-income individuals.
In 2016, nearly 36,000 people were arrested in New Jersey for marijuana possession or distribution, the third-highest rate of pot busts in the country that year. Despite the governor's push for justice, the issue of clearing former offenders' criminal records has not been a major topic of legislative debate. In a recent interview with The Record and NorthJersey.com, reporters asked Murphy whether he would consider speeding up the process by directly pardoning nonviolent marijuana offenders.