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When Biden expunged the records of thousands of people for marijuana convictions, he was limited due to the “federal” nature of his reach. Most convictions occur at the state level, and Missouri’s amendment from 2022 has shown the scale that can be accomplished.
All of the big counties have finished up combing through the records, so the number won’t climb much higher, but 140,000 expungements is a pretty steep number. Some of the earliest convictions come all the way from 1971 in the state. However, many counties didn’t go that far back, instead starting some time in the 80’s. This means there could be tens of thousands more convictions to expunge.
This was a meticulous process for each county, which consisted of identifying drug charges throughout the years, then determining whether or not it was for marijuana. 46% of the time, it was, and those were the records that were expunged.
140,000 is nothing to sneeze at, and there are still many more states who continue to have antiquated marijuana laws on the books. Here’s a list by Norml that lists the states with some form of expungement. Many are very limited, many require a petition. There are 23 states not listed, with not expungement process at all.
Read the original story at the Springfield News-Leader.
