Over 7,500 Pot Convictions Expunged in Missouri
High Times

More than 7,500 individuals in Missouri have had their prior marijuana-related convictions expunged with recreational cannabis now legal in the state. The expungement is the latest byproduct of the constitutional amendment that was approved by Missouri voters last fall, which legalized pot for adults and cleared the way for Missourians to have their records cleared. According to the Riverfront Times, passage of Amendment 3 “kick-started a process to expunge criminal records related to nonviolent marijuana offenses that otherwise would have been legal had Amendment 3 always been a part of Missouri’s constitution.” “The majority of expunged convictions so far are misdemeanors. As of [last] Tuesday, courts have granted 6,121 expungements for misdemeanors related to nonviolent cannabis offenses that did not involve selling to minors or driving under the influence of cannabis. More than 1,200 felony convictions have also been expunged,” the publication reported. Dan Viets, secretary of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws who helped author the state’s medical and recreational cannabis laws, told the Riverfront Times that the process is “going faster” than he expected. That has become a recurring theme for the Show Me State’s rollout of the new marijuana law. Legal recreational pot sales launched on February 6, which was earlier than anticipated. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported at the time that the nascent cannabis industry expected “that the licenses required to sell non-medical cannabis would not be issued by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services until [days later].”  The launch of legal weed sales came only a month after the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said that it was finalizing rules for the new adult-use cannabis program. “Once rules are effective, DHSS will begin approving or denying requests from licensed medical marijuana facilities to convert to comprehensive facilities, which…

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