During a press conference Monday morning, he said it is the “most sweeping state-level pardon in any state.”
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore ordered more than 175,000 pardons for marijuana convictions Monday.
During a press conference Monday morning, he said it is the “most sweeping state-level pardon in any state.”
Gov. Moore said the pardons will help reverse harms from the past caused by the war on drugs and his executive order will affect “tens of thousands of Marylanders” convicted of misdemeanors.
“We are taking actions that are intentional, that are sweeping and unapologetic, and this is the largest such action in our nation’s history,” Moore said Monday.
The pardons, however, will not result in anyone being released from incarceration or result in having past convictions automatically expunged from a person’s background check, the Associated Press said.
“This is about changing how both government and society view those who have been walled off from opportunity because of broken and uneven policies,” Moore added.
Advocates praised the move as a way of removing barriers to housing, employment, or educational opportunities based on convictions for conduct that is no longer illegal, the Associated Press reported.
Moore said that the pardons don't “erase the fact that Black Marylanders were three times more likely to be arrested for cannabis than white Marylanders before legalization. It doesn’t erase the fact that having a conviction on your record means a harder time with everything, everything, from housing, to employment to education.”
Recreational marijuana was legalized in Maryland in 2023 after voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2022, ABC News reported.
Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational cannabis, ABC News said.
