An estimated 800,000 residents in Illinois alone with marijuana-related convictions on their records. Between 2001 and 2010, more than 8.2 million marijuana-related arrests were made across the U.S., 88% of which were for simple possession....
Those whose arrests led to convictions often find themselves barred from certain jobs, housing, government benefits and even their children's field trips.... While more states have moved to legalize pot, many of them have failed to make provisions to help people who still carry convictions for behavior that's now legal.
However, an increasingly loud chorus of activists, lawmakers and some prosecutors are championing bills and even lawsuits to make sure some of those most hurt by prohibition don't get left behind when it ends.In some places, those efforts are making a difference. New York state, for instance, said it will automatically expunge convictions for possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana as part of a decriminalization bill signed by the governor in July.
But opposition and inertia have stymied similar measures in a number of other jurisdictions, with critics saying avenues for expunging old convictions already exist and the new laws only serve to let people off the hook for activity that was illegal at the time.... "It's just unbelievable the kinds of things that people face even decades later from insignificant convictions," says Emma Goodman, a staff attorney in the special litigation unit of The Legal Aid Society who works to get criminal records sealed.
Since 2012, 11 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the recreational use of cannabis, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, while another 15 have decriminalized it, usually meaning possession of small amounts is treated as a violation of the law subject only to a fine rather than time in prison. But while arrests have fallen in some places, that's little help to the many people convicted of marijuana-related crimes in years past.
Over the past four years, at least 15 states have enacted laws providing for the expungement of those convictions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Besides the expungement bill in New York, California is requiring its attorney general to review the cases of hundreds of thousands of people eligible to have convictions cleared as part of that state's marijuana legalization.
In Washington state, people with marijuana-related misdemeanors can go to court and apply to have those convictions vacated under a new law that went into effect in July. "We had issues where people who when they were teenagers were caught smoking weed and now they have kids, and they're not allowed to go on a field trip with their kids because they had a marijuana conviction," says Democratic state Sen. Joe Nguyen, whose district includes West Seattle and who sponsored that bill....