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The governor of Maryland says the mass pardon he issued for prior marijuana convictions was about more than addressing the public policy consequences of criminalization. As someone who was exposed to the criminal legal system at an early age, and having been a medical cannabis patient himself, he said there\u2019s an important personal psychological impact of attaining that relief.<\/p>\n
Gov. Wes Moore (D) spoke with Vlad TV about his personal experience with cannabis and the criminal justice system in an interview that was released on Sunday. He stressed that part of what motivated him to grant historic relief to people who\u2019ve been criminalized over marijuana was to ameliorate not only the \u201cpractical\u201d consequences of a conviction but also the \u201cemotional\u201d repercussions.<\/p>\n
Moore, who issued over 175,000 pardons for cannabis and paraphernalia convictions<\/a> in June, said the move was \u201cimportant because I want people to be able to better enter into an economy\u201d and also because he \u201cdid not understand how we continue to punish people for something that\u2019s no longer illegal in my state.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI did it because you cannot talk about the benefits of legalization if you don\u2019t deal with the consequences of criminalization,\u201d the governor said, adding that he was \u201ctired of hearing stories\u201d about people who\u2019ve struggled with issues such as employment due to decades-long convictions for minor marijuana offenses.<\/p>\n What\u2019s partly informed his perspective is his personal experience with law enforcement and cannabis. When he was 11 years old, Moore said he was picked up by police after being caught tagging in New York City. He was eventually released without getting a criminal record, which he described as a \u201cblessing\u201d given what he now knows about the \u201cconsequences of kids getting caught up in a juvenile justice system\u201d and \u201chow problematic it is having any any contact with the criminal justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou just realize how sometimes it\u2019s these small decisions that we make that can have a huge impact on what type of life we have the opportunity to live. And in many cases, you\u2019re making those decisions before you\u2019re even fully processing how you think about these things,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it was an important moment in my life and an important lesson learned for me too.\u201d<\/p>\n With respect to the cannabis pardons, Moore said there was \u201ca level of unfairness that had to be addressed with it\u2014but also at the same time, it is about how do we change and alter the psychology of people and not make every sentence a life sentence and really give people an opportunity to understand that rehabilitation can be a real thing?\u201d<\/p>\n The governor also reflected on the fact that, while he earned a strong majority of support to get into office in 2022, the marijuana legalization referendum that was on the ballot alongside his own name passed with an even stronger majority.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only thing that beat me that year was cannabis,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cSo this is something that, for the people of my state, they\u2019re like, \u2018We want a recreational market.\u2019 For many people\u2014many of us, myself included\u2014we\u2019ve used cannabis.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a person who\u2019s had a medical license for cannabis, and so it\u2019s like so, \u2018How do we now have a legal market that\u2019s in place\u2014that you have people who are literally using it for medicinal reasons\u2014and you have people who can\u2019t get a barber\u2019s license because they have a conviction on their record? People who can\u2019t get a government contract because they have a conviction, right?\u201d he said. \u201cSo there really had to be a different way that we applied this process and applied this work that actually honored that second chances should actually mean something.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month, Moore and the president of the NAACP also promoted the state\u2019s historic mass marijuana pardon<\/a>, which they said would unlock the economic potential of people targeted by criminalization. But the governor also stressed the need to get the word out about next steps for the majority of pardon recipients whose records weren\u2019t automatically expunged by his clemency move.<\/p>\n Moore has also gained praise from the White House<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0other officials such as Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D)<\/a> for his cannabis clemency move.<\/p>\n \u2014 Meanwhile, since Maryland\u2019s adult-use cannabis market launched in July of last year, licensed retailers have sold more than $1.1 billion worth of legal marijuana products<\/a>, including more than $700 million to adult consumers and $400 million in medical marijuana, the Maryland Cannabis Administration (MCA) said last month.<\/p>\n During the first quarter of 2024, meanwhile, the state\u00a0collected nearly $15 million in marijuana sales tax revenue<\/a>\u2014an increase of less than 0.7 percent compared to the previous quarter.<\/p>\n Aside from cannabis, the governor in May also signed\u00a0a pair of bills into law to establish a psychedelics task force<\/a>\u00a0that will study legal access to substances like psilocybin and DMT.<\/p>\n More States Consider Adding Female Orgasm Disorder As A Medical Marijuana Qualifying Condition<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis \/\/ Side Pocket Images.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Maryland Governor Says Personal Experience With Marijuana And Criminal Legal System Informed Mass Pardons<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The governor of Maryland says the mass pardon he issued for prior marijuana convictions was about more than addressing the public policy consequences of criminalization. As someone who was exposed to the criminal legal system at an early age, and having been a medical cannabis patient himself, he said there\u2019sContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":77232,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77231"}],"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=77231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77233,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77231\/revisions\/77233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Maryland Governor Says Personal Experience With Marijuana And Criminal Legal System Informed Mass Pardons<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"