The governor of Connecticut announced on Tuesday that the state will be automatically clearing records of low-level marijuana records for thousands of people at the beginning of the new year.<\/p>\n
Gov. Ned Lamont (D) said that the state has identified about 44,000 eligible possession cases that will be processed automatically at the beginning of the year under a provision of the cannabis legalization bill he signed last year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, his office said that people with a wider range of minor convictions on their records will be able to petition courts for record-sealing under separate reform legislation will that was enacted this year. The law created a streamlined \u201cClean Slate\u201d clemency\u00a0 program that\u2019s expected to be fully implemented in the second half of next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn January 1, thousands of people in Connecticut will have low-level cannabis convictions automatically erased due to the cannabis legalization bill we enacted last year,\u201d Lamont said<\/a> in a press release.<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially as Connecticut employers seek to fill hundreds of thousands of job openings, an old conviction for low-level cannabis possession should not hold someone back from pursuing their career, housing, professional, and educational aspirations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The announcement comes as the first adult-use marijuana retailers are nearing towards opening in Connecticut, a development that Lamont previewed over the summer<\/a>.<\/p>\n And while the press release from the governor\u2019s office explains that this clemency action is related to the 2021 legalization bill, it also comes weeks after President Joe Biden issued a mass cannabis pardon for people with federal possession offenses and urged governors to provide state-level relief.<\/p>\n Late last month, Biden cheered\u00a0Oregon Gov. Kate Brown\u2019s (D) recent move to grant tens of thousands of marijuana pardons<\/a> and said that other states should \u201cfollow Oregon\u2019s example.\u201d Last week, Brown described cannabis clemency as \u201cvery much a racial justice issue.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Governors from states across the U.S.\u00a0have given mixed responses about their plans<\/a> for marijuana clemency in light of the president\u2019s call to action, with some pledging to analyze their options and others noting that their authority is limited.<\/p>\n North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D)\u00a0came out in support of marijuana decriminalization<\/a> in October, saying it\u2019s time to \u201cend the stigma\u201d and announcing steps he\u2019s taken to explore his options for independently granting relief to people with existing convictions.<\/p>\n Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D), meanwhile,\u00a0signed two marijuana-related executive orders<\/a> last month: one to protect patients who meet certain criteria and possess medical cannabis legally obtained from dispensaries in other states, and another to regulate the sale of delta-8 THC products. The medical cannabis move is based on the governor\u2019s clemency powers.<\/p>\n Lamont, for his part, has long supported legalization and celebrated the policy change that\u2019s being actively implemented. For example, he shared a clip of a country song in June that including lyrics saying that one great thing about Connecticut is that it\u2019s \u201ccool to smoke some pot\u201d<\/a> since the governor signed the legalization bill.<\/p>\n Before signing the reform legislation, Lamont was asked if he\u2019d partake himself when marijuana was officially legal\u2014and he didn\u2019t rule it out<\/a>, saying \u201cnot right now, but we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the governor also signed a large-scale budget bill in May that includes provisions to set the state up to provide certain patients with access to psychedelic-assisted treatment<\/a>\u00a0using substances like MDMA and psilocybin.<\/p>\n McConnell Blasts Democrats Over Plans To Add Marijuana Banking To Defense Bill<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Thousands Of Connecticut Marijuana Possession Records Will Be Wiped Away At Beginning Of 2023, Connecticut Governor Announces<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The governor of Connecticut announced on Tuesday that the state will be automatically clearing records of low-level marijuana records for thousands of people at the beginning of the new year. Gov. Ned Lamont (D) said that the state has identified about 44,000 eligible possession cases that will be processed automaticallyContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58987"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58988,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58987\/revisions\/58988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Thousands Of Connecticut Marijuana Possession Records Will Be Wiped Away At Beginning Of 2023, Connecticut Governor Announces<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"