Lawmakers discussed Friday whether adults should be allowed to have their misdemeanor convictions for marijuana conviction thrown out if they were over 21 at the time of the offense.
The House’s Public Safety Committee is weighing a bill by Democratic legislators that would allow misdemeanor convictions for possessing 40 grams or less of marijuana to be set aside and dismissed. If it passes, the process to clear records would be different from the way other misdemeanors are expunged. Unlike those cases, a marijuana offender wouldn’t have to wait three years after completing the sentence to get the conviction wiped off the record.
The bill would erase past criminal convictions for possession of small amounts of marijuana that was legalized by voters’ passage of Initiative 502.
