{"id":2539,"date":"2025-03-21T20:54:39","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T00:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/in-print-2\/volume-22-special-issue\/cannabis-justice-race-and-politics\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:11:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:11:26","slug":"cannabis-justice-race-and-politics","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/in-print-2\/volume-22-special-issue\/cannabis-justice-race-and-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannabis, Justice, Race, and Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I<\/span>NTRODUCTION<span class=\"s1\">: C<\/span>ANNABIS AND <span class=\"s1\">C<\/span>LEMENCY<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">Almost two years after Maryland voters approved a referendum legalizing the possession or use of cannabis for medical or recreational purposes, on June 17, 2024, Maryland Governor Wes Moore issued an executive order granting a mass pardon (often called an amnesty<span class=\"s2\">1<\/span>) to between 100,000 and 175,000 offenders convicted in Maryland state courts of the misdemeanor crimes of cannabis possession or possession with the intent to use drug paraphernalia.<span class=\"s2\">2 <\/span>Governor Moore stated that he issued the pardons to achieve three results: (1) to eliminate any lingering adverse effect of a conviction for conduct that is now lawful,<span class=\"s1\">3 <\/span>(2) to remove barriers to employment and housing for people convicted of low-level cannabis offenses by eliminating convictions from their records,<span class=\"s1\">4 <\/span>and (3) to address the disproportionate investigation and prosecution of blacks for cannabis offenses.<span class=\"s1\">5 <\/span>To implement his order, the governor asked the Maryland judiciary, with the assistance of the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, to identify and list the specific people who should receive the relief he granted.<span class=\"s1\">6<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Governor Moore\u2019s action will be lauded by three groups: one supporting criminal justice reform, one claiming that the Maryland criminal justice system had discriminated against blacks, and one supporting politicians<span class=\"s2\">\u2014<\/span>whether Democratic or Republican, whether conservative or liberal<span class=\"s2\">\u2014<\/span>who see cannabis reform as a political boon for their preferred officials and candidates. The rationale that each of those groups would voice, however, is different from the others. Each justification should be examined separately.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2025\/03\/GT-GLPP240052.pdf\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>INTRODUCTION: CANNABIS AND CLEMENCY Almost two years after Maryland voters approved a referendum legalizing the possession or use of cannabis for medical or recreational purposes, on June 17, 2024, Maryland [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10127,"featured_media":0,"parent":2421,"menu_order":13,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-2539","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2539"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2545,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2539\/revisions\/2545"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}