Congressmen: San Francisco is retroactively applying marijuana legalization to prior convictions dating to 1975, which means that thousands of felonies and misdemeanors will be re-sentenced or dismissed. This is how we begin to end the failed “war on drugs.”

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San Francisco will retroactively apply California’s new marijuana legalization laws to prior convictions, expunging or reducing misdemeanors and felonies dating to 1975, the district attorney’s office announced Wednesday.

Nearly 5,000 felony marijuana convictions will be reviewed, recalled and resentenced, and more than 3,000 misdemeanors that were sentenced prior to Proposition 64’s passage will be dismissed and sealed, Dist. Atty. George Gascón said. The move will clear people’s records of crimes that can be barriers to employment and housing.
San Francisco’s move could be the beginning of a larger movement to address old pot convictions, though it’s still far from clear how many other counties will follow the famously liberal city’s lead.

Proposition 64 legalizes, among other things, the possession and purchase of up to an ounce of marijuana and allows individuals to grow up to six plants for personal use. The measure also allows people convicted of marijuana possession crimes eliminated by Proposition 64 to petition the courts to have those convictions expunged from their records as long as the person does not pose a risk to public safety.

Marijuana is slowly being legalized in more and more states in America and that is great, but one step that states besides California have yet to take is to go ahead and begin applying legalization to people that have past convictions for marijuana.
San Francisco is going to start striking marijuana misdemeanors and felonies from people’s records because that is the logical next step after this prohibition is reversed.
Does anyone know if people with convictions for bootlegging alcohol during Prohibition had it held against them for the rest of their lives, even after Prohibition was rescinded?
In any case, it’s great that California is doing this, and hopefully other states that have legalized marijuana will follow California’s example.
 
 
h/t User_Name13