Democrat Gov. John Carney signed legislation into law today vacating past marijuana convictions. Senate Bill 197, which took immediate effect, “provides mandatory expungement eligibility to individuals who were convicted of the possession [of one ounce or less], use or consumption of marijuana prior to Delaware’s decriminalization of these offenses.” State lawmakers in 2015 enacted legislation [...]
Democrat Gov. Gina Raimondo has signed legislation permitting those with past marijuana convictions to have their records expunged. House Bill 8355/S. 2447 allows those with past convictions for crimes involving the possession of less than one ounce of cannabis to petition the court to seek an order of expungement. It states, “[W]here the court has [...]
Welcome to the latest edition of NORML’s Weekly Legislative Roundup! Good news – on Thursday the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee for the first time heard and passed language, known as the Joyce amendment, to restrict funding for the Department of Justice to prosecute state-legal medical marijuana programs. At the state level, Governor Jeff Colyer (R) [...]
Welcome to the latest edition of NORML’s Weekly Legislative Roundup! I first want to bring your attention to some key developments happening at the federal level. United States Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), along with Oregon Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, introduced legislation to remove low THC hemp from the federal Controlled Substances Act [...]
State laws reducing minor marijuana possession offenses from criminal to civil violations (aka decriminalization) are associated with dramatic reductions in drug-related arrests, and are not linked to any uptick in youth cannabis use, according to data published by researchers at Washington University and the National Bureau of Economic Research. Investigators examined the associations between cannabis [...]