(CNN) — Maryland’s governor is expected to pardon more than 175,000 marijuana convictions Monday, according to his office – a significant act of mass clemency at a time when more than half of Americans support the drug’s legalization.
The pardons by Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, will forgive low-level marijuana possession charges for an estimated 100,000 people, his office said: That includes more than 150,000 misdemeanor convictions for simple possession of cannabis and more than 18,000 misdemeanor convictions for use or possession with intent to use drug paraphernalia, according to the governor’s office.
“I’m ecstatic that we have a real opportunity with what I’m signing to right a lot of historical wrongs,” Moore said in an interview with The Washington Post, which first reported the news. “If you want to be able to create inclusive economic growth, it means you have to start removing these barriers that continue to disproportionately sit on communities of color.”
The pardons – which also apply to people who have died, the Post reported – will not result in people being freed from incarceration, the governor’s office said.
The governor’s action Monday will come more than two years after Maryland voters approved a constitutional amendment legalizing recreational marijuana for people 21 and older.
But it is also timed to coincide with Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the US, the Post reported – an acknowledge of the disproportionate affect the issue has for Black and brown people.
“While the pardons will extend to anyone and everyone with a misdemeanor conviction for the possession of marijuana or paraphernalia, this unequivocally, without any doubt or reservation, disproportionately impacts — in a good way — Black and Brown Marylanders,” Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown told the Post in an interview. “We are arrested and convicted at higher rates for possession and use of marijuana when the rate at which we used it was no different than any other category of people.”
Cannabis, and specifically how it is viewed by the public and politicians, has undergone a sea-change during the past decade: In November 2023, a record 70% of Americans surveyed by Gallup said they supported cannabis legalization. In 2014, the share was 51%.
Restrictions easing
For more than 50 years, marijuana has been categorized as a Schedule I substance — alongside drugs like heroin and ecstasy, considered to have no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse — and subject to the strictest of restrictions.
But in April, the Biden administration moved to reclassify marijuana as a lower-risk substance. The US Department of Justice recommended it be rescheduled as a Schedule III controlled substance, a classification shared by prescription drugs such as ketamine and Tylenol with codeine.
The recommendation followed a US Food and Drug Administration review at the direction of Biden, who in 2022 had written to the Justice Department supporting marijuana’s reclassification.
Currently, 24 states, two territories and DC have legalized cannabis for adult recreational use, and 38 states allow medical use of cannabis products, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures. State-licensed cannabis dispensaries and retail shops are expected to generate $32.1 billion in sales this year, according to estimates from MJBiz, a cannabis industry trade publication and events organizer.
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