Members of the Vermont House of Representatives preliminarily approved legislation to facilitate the automatic expungement of many past, low-level marijuana possession convictions.
Category: Expungement
Included in legislation being considered this special session are a number marijuana-related objectives which have advanced in both the Senate and House of Delegates thus far.
House lawmakers are preparing for a September floor vote on legislation – The Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement Act a/k/a The MORE Act — to remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act. The forthcoming vote would mark the first time since the passage of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which placed cannabis in the same category as heroin as a Schedule I controlled substance, that a Congressional chamber has voted to remove marijuana from its prohibitive classification.
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The move summarily pardons an estimated 15,000 people previously convicted of offenses involving the possession of up to one ounce of cannabis.
While the Governor’s office already possesses the authority to issue pardons in certain circumstances, this measure expands those powers so that the Governor can do so unilaterally for persons with minor marijuana convictions.
The legislation, if enacted, would have shielded an estimated 200,000 low-level marijuana convictions from public view.
Legislators decided 116 to 15 in support of House Bill 83, which mandates, “All court records and police records relating to any … charge of possession of marijuana, … where marijuana is the only charge, the case shall be automatically expunged on or before October 1, 2022.”