The governor of the US state of Maryland has promised to issue a mass pardon of 175,000 low-level marijuana convictions.
Wes Moore told the Washington Post in an interview published on Sunday that he would make the mass pardon on Monday morning. He said the timing was meant to coincide with this week’s Juneteenth holiday, a day that marks the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.
The pardons will forgive low-level marijuana possession charges for an estimated 100,000 people, the paper said.
Moore’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Moore called the scope of his pardons “the most far-reaching and aggressive” executive action among officials nationwide who have sought to unwind criminal justice inequities with the growing legalisation of marijuana.
Black Americans have historically been more than three times as likely as white Americans to be arrested on marijuana charges, according to research from the American Civil Liberties Union.
Moore told the Post that such criminal records have been used to deny housing, employment and education, holding people and their families back long after their sentences have been served.
“I’m ecstatic that we have a real opportunity with what I’m signing to right a lot of historical wrongs,” Moore said. “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 colour.”
The Maryland attorney general, Anthony Brown, told the Post the pardons were “certainly long overdue as a nation” and “a racial equity issue”.
The Post reported that the pardons would not result in releasing anyone from imprisonment.
The move by Moore comes on the heels of a similar mass pardon in Massachusetts, and after the president, Joe Biden, issued some pardons in recent years on federal drug convictions. In April, Biden’s administration took steps to make marijuana use a less serious crime at the federal level.
While marijuana use and possession remains illegal under federal law, 24 states – including Maryland – and Washington DC have legalised the recreational use of marijuana under state law, while 38 states and Washington DC allow medical use of marijuana, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
With Reuters