Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on Monday issued a “historic” pardon of more than 175,000 individual marijuana convictions, his first since the state’s legalization of recreational cannabis went into effect last year.
“We cannot celebrate the benefits of legalization if we do not address the consequences of criminalization,” the first-term Democrat governor said Monday.
Cannabis is legal for medical use in 38 states and recreational in 24. Maryland voters in 2022 approved a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana that took effect July last year.
Monday on social media, the governor’s office called it “the most sweeping state-level pardon in any state in American history.”
Moore’s automatic pardon will clear more than 150,000 misdemeanors for possession and more than 18,000 possession with intent to use drug paraphernalia convictions, including for deceased persons. But while the pardons affect those with charges occurring before January 1 of last year, it will not result in any individual being released from prison.
Amid conflicting laws and changing opinions, states and the federal government have been taking incremental steps over recent years to either legalize marijuana or reduce penalties for it. A Gallup poll from November last year showed that national grassroots support for marijuana legalization is at an all-time high of 70%.
President Joe Biden in October 2022 issued pardons for federal marijuana offenses and urged states to follow and called on governors to do the same at the state level, which nine others have since done.
The city of Baltimore will comprise roughly 23% of Moore’s pardons. Moore pointed to decades of social and economic injustice with respect to marijuana convictions for low-level offenders.
Mayor Brandon Scott said in a statement that Moore’s pardon “is a step towards healing” in what he called a “visceral and tangible” legacy of what “the war on drugs has had” on Baltimore.
