OLYMPIA — Washington could wipe out as many as 200,000 convictions for misdemeanor marijuana possession for adults who don’t have anything else on their criminal records.
A proposal in the Senate calls for automatic clemency for anyone over 21 convicted of marijuana possession after Jan. 1, 1998, the year voters legalized the drug for medicinal use. A person with multiple misdemeanor marijuana possession charges would be eligible for having their record wiped clean, but a person with any other crime on their record would not.
“Things that are legal now should be vacated from previous convictions,” said Sen. Joe Nguyen, D-West Seattle. “This is really a matter of equity and justice.”
Sen. Jeff Holy, R-Cheney, a former law enforcement officer, said he generally agrees with “getting rid of obstacles that don’t serve any purpose.” Although wiping a person’s record clean would have been a simple thing 50 years ago, he said, today that information could remain available on social media and elsewhere on the internet, even if it’s cleared from court records.