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Tag: marijuana convictions

  • Finland May Be Next Country To Decriminalize Marijuana

    Finland May Be Next Country To Decriminalize Marijuana

    Advocates hope the number of signees, as well as those that support the effort but did not sign, will push the government towards decriminalization.

    Finland’s Parliament is reportedly considering the decriminalization of marijuana after more than 50,000 residents signed a petition to revise the country’s current laws.

    The proposal sought to remove criminal penalties for the possession of 25 grams or less of cannabis, as well as the cultivation of up to four plants, both for personal use; the organization behind the measure, Kasuva Kannabiksesta, cited the deleterious impact of marijuana convictions on Finnish citizens, who can be barred from education or work opportunities for minor convictions, as a primary factor behind the petition.

    Advocates are hoping that the sheer number of signees, as well as those that support their efforts but did not sign the petition, will help to push the Finnish government towards ratifying decriminalization.

    The People Of Finland Support Decriminalization

    The petition’s primary sponsor, activist Janne Karvinen, said that the majority of the 50,000 signatures were gained in its final month, which he credited to a strong social media push.

    He also believed that the actual level of support for decriminalization in Finland was even greater than the number of signees. “There’s certainly more than 50,000 – or even more than 100,000 – people in Finland who support this issue,” he told, Yle, Finland’s national public broadcasting company.

    In addition to the aforementioned allowances for personal use, the petition would also call for new penalties for individuals who use marijuana in public areas where children are present.

    Even Minor Drug Charges Impact Job Opportunities In The Country

    In terms of the current policies regarding marijuana use, the petition’s authors stated that they have done more harm than good by imposing severe penalties on cannabis users; individuals convicted of even minor drug charges can be barred from more than 60 job and educational opportunities.

    It also noted the financial toll of employing police officers to make arrests on such charges and then processing individuals through the legal system.

    By calling for decriminalization and not legalization, the petition’s authors said that Finland would remain within the requirements of United Nations (UN) obligations, which do not allow member nations to regulate and sell cannabis. As the petition states, “The ban on an act may not be completely abolished or made legal, but the punishment for the act will be abolished or the act will be transformed into a mere offense, for example, a fine.”

    As Marijuana Moment noted, this language may address how Canada and Uruguay have remained within the UN regulations while still allowing for cannabis legalization.

    Karvinen told Yle that he believed the Finnish Parliament would pass the initiatives called for in the petition on the grounds that members “do not want to oppose the benefits decriminalization would bring.”

    However, the newspaper also quoted Mika Luoma-aho, a researcher on drug policy from the University of Lapland, who opined that the government is most likely not ready to accept such a measure “But it will force a debate,” said Luoma-aho. “I want to hear the discussion that quashes the initiative and then continue the dialogue on that basis.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Serving Life In Prison For Selling Pot

    Serving Life In Prison For Selling Pot

    “I have been incarcerated for 4,252 days and counting for a non-violent marijuana conviction — something that is becoming legal in this country more and more every day.”

    Ferrell Scott doesn’t know if he’ll ever sit with his 96-year-old mother again. He’s never been able to spend a leisurely afternoon with his three grandchildren. Scott, 56, has no control over his future, because he is serving a life sentence for selling marijuana. 

    “You see a lot of states making (pot) legal,” Scott told USA Today. “I don’t think I did anything any different.”

    Three-Strikes Law

    Scott was charged under a three-strikes law after being arrested on marijuana charges in 2008. He wasn’t a small-time dealer: he was tracking marijuana by the truck load. He was charged with conspiracy to possess and intent to distribute more than 2,000 pounds of marijuana. 

    Coupled with drug convictions from the 1980s, that charge led to serious time. However, it didn’t have to be that way. Scott was offered a plea deal that would have seen him do eight years in prison, but he declined it because he didn’t want to name others who were working for him. Instead, he opted to go to trial, and was sentenced to life. 

    “You would think that selling marijuana is the worst thing in the world because I was given a life sentence for it,” he wrote. 

    Even the prosecutor in Scott’s case felt that the verdict was unjust, and wrote a letter to support Scott’s clemency appeal. However, that appeal was denied in 2016. 

    “I have been incarcerated for 4,252 days and counting for a non-violent marijuana conviction — something that is becoming legal in this country more and more every day,” Scott wrote in a letter published by USA Today. 

    Unequal Justice

    Black Americans, like Scott, are arrested for marijuana offenses much more often than whites, even though Black and white Americans use cannabis at about the same rates. Now, Scott is frustrated to see white entrepreneurs getting rich off marijuana sales, while he spends his entire life in prison for the same offense. 

    “I’m not looking for sympathy. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me,” Scott writes. “At the end of the day I just ask for empathy — the ability to understand other peoples’ situations and deal with the difference.”

    Sam Adetunji is one of few Black entrepreneurs moving into the legal cannabis space. He said that the impact of the war on drugs and unequal enforcement of marijuana laws keeps other people of color from getting involved in what’s now a profitable sector. It also keeps people like Scott behind bars for activities that are now legal. 

    “There’s a lot of fear with getting into the industry for minorities because there are so many people who look like us getting thrown into jail,” Adetunji said. “People had to do what they had to do to make ends meet and feed their families. Now that the laws have been changed, there hasn’t been as a big of a movement to get those people out of jail.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries Unveil Marijuana Decriminalization Bill

    Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries Unveil Marijuana Decriminalization Bill

    Schumer and Jeffries announced the bill in a video where they discussed its provisions and intended impact.

    A pair of Democratic lawmakers have partnered on a new bill that seeks to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level.

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries joined forces for the Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act, which would remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act, while also offering support to small business owners involved in cannabis-related industries and funding toward the Department of Justice (DOJ) to support expungement programs for marijuana convictions at the state and local level.

    The bill is the second such effort in two years for Schumer, who, in describing the bill, said, “What we’re saying is very simple. Let each state do what it wants.”

    Schumer and Jeffries announced the bill in a video where the two discussed the bill’s provisions and intended impact. Decriminalization, as Schumer noted, will allow the states to create their own legislation regarding marijuana and remove concerns for sellers, distributors and users about federal prosecution.

    The bill also includes the aforementioned expungement program funds for the DOJ, which Jeffries said would “[create] opportunity and economic space [that] will be tremendous.”

    He also noted that removing criminal marijuana charges would change the course of “lives and communities that have been ruined in large measure by the overcriminalization.”

    Small cannabis business owners, especially women or people of color, will also benefit through support from the Small Business Administration, which is included in the bill. “Let’s not have some big fancy corporation, some big tobacco company make all the money,” said Schumer in the video. Additionally, the Huffington Post reported that the bill will provide millions of dollars for research into the effects of marijuana on brain function and driving impairment.

    “The Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act is a phenomenal step forward in terms of social, racial and economic justice in the context of what many people view as the failed War on Drugs that has been with us for decades,” said Jeffries.

    As High Times noted, the bill will most likely face opposition from Senate Republicans, but it’s not clear how Donald Trump will respond. The president previously voiced support for a legalization bill introduced by Senator Cory Gardner (R-Colorado) in 2018.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • San Francisco DA Expunges More Than 9,000 Pot Cases

    San Francisco DA Expunges More Than 9,000 Pot Cases

    The move makes San Francisco the first county in California to fully comply with the requirements of the state’s recreational marijuana legalization bill.

    Calling it a “matter of dignity,” San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón announced that he will expunge 9,362 marijuana-related convictions—some dating back to 1975—and reduce felony and misdemeanor charges to misdemeanor and infraction, respectively.

    The expungement is a joint effort between the DA’s office and the nonprofit, Code for America, which uses an algorithm to identify eligible cases.

    The move makes San Francisco the first county in California to fully comply with the requirements of AB 1793, a regulation of Proposition 64—the state’s recreational marijuana legalization bill—which required automation of the charge reduction or expungement process for eligible marijuana convictions.

    Prior to Gascón’s announcement on February 25, the San Francisco Chronicle noted that just 23 people petitioned to have their cases reclassified or expunged. The newspaper cited Gascón’s assessment that the low number was due to the difficulty of the process, which required an attorney and took considerable time and effort to complete.

    But the partnership with Code for America, which was launched in May 2018, offered a chance to automate the process by using a computer-based algorithm dubbed “Clear My Record.” Prior to that, Gascón’s office had identified some 3,000 cases eligible for expungement.

    According to the Associated Press, the program quickly determines eligible cases and then automatically fills out the forms required by the court to process expungement. At Monday’s announcement, Gascón said that the work had been completed ahead of the expected timeframe for completion—which was initially set at a year’s time—and under budget.

    “It’s incumbent that we, as law enforcement leaders, continue to evolve how we advance fairness and public safety in our respective communities,” he said. “I hope that our success with Code for America can act as a catalyst for other leaders looking to engage in similar innovative and out-of-the-box methods to reform and rethink what our criminal justice system looks like.”

    Code for America director Jennifer Pahlka said that her organization was already working with several other district attorneys in California to provide the same service for their marijuana cases. 

    Prosecutors in cities across America have already launched or announced similar expungement efforts, including Baltimore, Seattle and Chicago; New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced the vacation of more than 3,000 outstanding warrants for misdemeanor and violation cases involving cannabis consumption and possession in September 2018.

    Expungement and reduction of these charges can allow thousands of individuals to pursue housing, job and educational opportunities that in may cases were not available to them because of their convictions.

    “Even convictions from many years ago can have an impact on people’s lives now, and this will ensure that it doesn’t happen,” said Drug Policy Alliance deputy state director Laura Thomas to High Times. “We hope that other prosecutors around the country follow Gascón’s lead.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Washington State To Pardon Thousands Of Pot Possession Charges

    Washington State To Pardon Thousands Of Pot Possession Charges

    The governor’s office says about 3,500 citizens qualify for the pardon according to the plan, called the Marijuana Justice Initiative.

    Governor Jay Inslee of the state of Washington announced he is offering to pardon thousands of people charged with only a misdemeanor marijuana charge, which will help citizens who would otherwise be dogged with these minor crimes as they seek employment or look for housing.

    The caveat is that the charge must be a state charge between January 1, 1998 and December 5, 2012, not a local ordinance. The December date marks the day marijuana possession was legalized in the state. The governor’s office says about 3,500 citizens qualify for the pardon according to the plan, called the Marijuana Justice Initiative.

    “We shouldn’t be punishing people for something that is no longer illegal behavior in the state of Washington,” said Inslee, believing that there is great support for the initiative.

    Inslee has always been enthusiastic about legal marijuana in his state. Last year on television, the governor bragged to host Bill Maher that “we’ve got the best weed in the United States of America.”

    Those who need the pardon can apply on the website of the governor’s office. Those who receive one will have the charge scrubbed from public criminal records; however, a copy will be retained for law enforcement knowledge only. To have the court records scrubbed as well, a petition can be made to the court that ruled over the charges.

    Some regard the moves to be good publicity for a possible presidential campaign.

    “While it’s a wonderful gesture, it won’t pardon everybody,” said Seattle Hempfest General Manager Sharon Whitson. “They really do need to look at it all the way up the scale.”

    Inslee agrees the initiative doesn’t do enough but claims it’s a good first step. He said citizens should urge other local authorities to follow his lead. His advisers claim that Inslee is looking into more comprehensive legislation for pardoning remaining marijuana offenders as well.

    A bill that was proposed in 2017 that would require all courts to hear any requests to clear these crimes did not pass. The city of Seattle, however, has begun to follow suit, vacating around 542 Seattle citizens of these charges.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Is New York City Handing Out Harsher Penalties For THC Oil Possession?

    Is New York City Handing Out Harsher Penalties For THC Oil Possession?

    A new report reveals a major contradiction in the city’s ongoing efforts to reform marijuana enforcement.

    Getting caught with a cartridge of THC oil can land you in jail in New York City—despite city officials’ promise to decriminalize marijuana offenses.

    A new report by The Appeal highlights the disparity in the city’s enforcement of possession of THC oil versus marijuana in its raw form.

    “Cannabis oil possession carries a harsher charge than regular marijuana possession,” The Appeal reports.

    “Because the oil is classified as a controlled substance, the charge is a Class A misdemeanor, the same class used for low-level heroin and crack possession. Those convicted of the charge can be sentenced to up to a year in jail.”

    The fact that police officers are still treating THC oil possession as a criminal misdemeanor contradicts the city’s ongoing efforts to reform marijuana enforcement.

    On Sept. 1st, the city enacted a new policy to ticket instead of arrest people for public marijuana smoking. Mayor Bill de Blasio claimed that the new policy would reduce marijuana possession arrests by 10,000. Each year, about 17,500 people are arrested in New York City for marijuana possession.

    Neither the mayor’s office nor the NYPD agreed to comment on its policy regarding THC oil.

    “The DA’s office has prosecuted at least 22 THC or cannabis oil cases since Sept. 1, according to public defenders in Brooklyn… In 13 of those cases, people were charged with possessing cannabis oil alone, without any other misdemeanor or felony charges,” The Appeal reports.

    Oren Yaniv, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, says the DA is working to reduce marijuana convictions.

    “New York law categorizes THC oil not as marijuana, but as a controlled substance… However, recognizing that THC is the active ingredient in marijuana, we believe that the two forms of marijuana should be treated similarly,” said Yaniv.

    Meanwhile, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo is working on the bigger picture. The state is currently exploring legalizing marijuana for adult use. New York already has a medical marijuana program. However, home cultivation, smokable medical marijuana, and edible products are not allowed under the program.

    This month, during a recent appearance in Buffalo, Governor Cuomo said that marijuana legalization legislation is in the works.

    “We now have a working group that is putting together a piece of legislation that would do it, because the devil is in the details: How do you do it, where do you do it, what are the ages, etc.? What is New Jersey doing? What has Massachusetts done? So that legislation is being crafted. I expect it to be introduced next year. The when and the how, we’re not clear,” Cuomo said.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Clear My Record" Project To Help Expunge 250,000 Marijuana Convictions

    "Clear My Record" Project To Help Expunge 250,000 Marijuana Convictions

    San Francisco is partnering with tech-nonprofit Code for America to expedite the difficult expungement process. 

    A new initiative aims to speed up the process of expunging a marijuana conviction from a person’s criminal record, with the ambitious goal of clearing 250,000 marijuana convictions by 2019.

    It’s only right. Nine states and Washington, D.C. have legalized marijuana for adult use, while 29 states and D.C. allow the medical use of marijuana. Marijuana has already yielded a booming multibillion-dollar industry, with no sign of slowing down.

    Yet, a marijuana conviction can still be a barrier to employment, housing and other benefits.

    “In a human way, when you see the problem up close it becomes a moral imperative to solve it,” said Jennifer Pahlka, founder and executive director of Code for America.

    In January, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón announced that his office will be retroactively applying Proposition 64—the law that made cannabis legal in California for adult use—to thousands of misdemeanor and felony convictions dating back to 1975.

    Specifically, the DA’s office said it would review, recall and resentence “up to 4,940 felony marijuana convictions and dismiss and seal 3,038 misdemeanors” which were sentenced prior to cannabis legalization in California.

    The initiative will be helped by the Clear My Record program, a project of Code for America, a non-profit organization that uses technology to tackle local issues by teaming up with state and city governments.

    Clear My Record recognizes that the process of expunging one’s low-level and non-violent marijuana conviction “is a very bad one”—bogged down by paperwork, the cost of hiring legal support, and a whole lot of waiting, according to Pahlka.

    Hoping to facilitate this process, Clear My Record has simplified the application process for people seeking expungement with the help of technology. Its goal is to expand the program and ultimately clear 250,000 marijuana convictions by 2019.

    “That number is an estimate assuming we get a certain number of counties to come onboard showing the same sort of leadership that DA Gascón has shown,” said Pahlka, according to Mashable. “And I would think it’s a high likelihood. It’s ambitious and I’m excited about it. I also don’t want to stop there.”

    The ultimate goal is to right the wrongs of the drug war. “While drug policy on the federal level is going backward, San Francisco is once again taking the lead to undo the damage that this country’s disastrous, failed drug war has had on our nation and on communities of color in particular,” said Gascón in his January statement. “So instead of waiting for the community to take action, we’re taking action for the community.”

    Learn how Clear My Record works.

    View the original article at thefix.com