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LPP Recaps Progress of State & Federal Cannabis Legislation in 2023

Dec 21, 2023

Last Prisoner Project’s (LPP) policy team had a busy year working within multiple states to pass legislation that would allow individuals, who have been criminalized by cannabis prohibition, to have their criminal sentences modified and their criminal records cleared. The policy team provided recommendations to legislators in Hawai’i, Delaware, Minnesota, Ohio, Maine, New Hampshire, and Maryland on how to effectively provide retroactive relief for those criminalized during prohibition once adult-use cannabis has been legalized.


LPP also worked in states that have already legalized adult-use cannabis (i.e. Connecticut, California, New Jersey, Virginia and New Mexico) to provide feedback on how those states can address critical gaps in their record clearance and resentencing processes for those with cannabis convictions. In an effort to better understand the national landscape of cannabis justice and expand our work, LPP’s policy team conducted a national assessment of cannabis policy in our newly released State of Cannabis Justice Report.


High-Level State Updates for 2023:


  • Delaware 
  • Delaware became the 22nd state to legalize adult-use cannabis on April 21st. 
  • While Delaware legalized cannabis and a cannabis-specific record clearance process, neither of these policies have been implemented yet, making it difficult to evaluate their impact.
  • Minnesota
  • Minnesota became the 23rd state to legalize adult-use cannabis after they passed House File (HF) 100 this past May.
  • The new law creates state-initiated record clearance and resentencing processes for those criminalized during prohibition but both policies require reviews by a specially appointed board that are likely to be arduous and are already proving to be delayed.
  • Ohio 
  • 57% of Ohio residents voted to approve Issue 2 in November, making Ohio the 24th state to legalize adult-use cannabis. 
  • Despite the legalization of adult-use sales through Issue 2, the absence of automatic resentencing and record clearance provisions leaves a critical gap in redressing past injustices.
  • Maryland 
  • The legalization of adult-use cannabis came into effect this year in Maryland. 
  • Maryland’s legalization measure outlined a state-initiated record clearance process as well as a broad resentencing process but the state has struggled with implementing both policies, making actual relief difficult to evaluate.
  • Kentucky
  • Kentucky became the 38th state to allow for medical use.
  • The bill that legalized medical cannabis did not include criminal justice provisions that would create record clearance or resentencing processes for those criminalized by cannabis prohibition. 
  • Others States that Failed to Legalize
  • In March of 2023 Oklahoma voters rejected State Question 820, which would have legalized adult-use cannabis, as well as provide both petitioner-initiated resentencing and record clearance. 
  • Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon also saw legalization ballot measures fail before being adopted in later votes.


Legislation Where LPP Provided In-depth Technical Assistance in 2023:


  • Connecticut
  • HB 6787, Sentence Modification for Cannabis-related Offenses
  • Although HB 6787 did not pass last year, LPP’s advocacy on the bill helped ensure that any eligible pending cannabis charges were dropped. Connecticut Chief State's Attorney, Patrick J. Griffin, disclosed that the State’s Attorneys voluntarily and diligently worked to dismiss over 1,500 pending cannabis-related criminal cases across the state.   
  • Minnesota
  • HF 100, Omnibus Adult-use Cannabis Bill
  • Minnesota’s legalization bill includes provisions to provide state-initiated record clearance and sentence modification. 
  • LPP provided recommendations to create oversight and reporting requirements to ensure the record clearance and resentencing provisions are implemented with fidelity. 
  • New Mexico
  • HB 314
  • New Mexico law provides broad eligibility for individuals with cannabis criminal convictions to have their criminal records cleared and have their criminal sentence reduced or eliminated. 
  • LPP worked to prevent rollback legislation and fought to maintain eligibility for individuals with a combination of cannabis-and-non-cannabis charges for sentence modification.
  • New Jersey
  • Provided recommendations and feedback to the Clean Slate Task Force regarding record clearance provisions for cannabis offenses.
  • Worked to ensure the state reported data on its efforts related to cannabis record clearance and resentencing.
  • Hawai’i
  • HCR 51
  • The Last Prisoner Project was directly named in a resolution passed by the House to provide technical assistance to Governor Green’s Office in implementing a cannabis clemency program.
  • California
  • AB 1706 
  • Ongoing implementation support and monitoring of the LPP-sponsored bill intended to ensure California’s commitment to record clearance and sentence modification for cannabis-related convictions.
  • Virginia
  • SB 391
  • Although the bill’s primary aim was to create a legally regulated marketplace for cannabis, the bill also included provisions crafted by LPP to implement sentence modification for cannabis-related offenses. 


Federal Legislation in 2023


The Harnessing Opportunities by Pursuing Expungement (HOPE) Act is bipartisan bill aims to help states with expunging cannabis offenses by reducing the financial and administrative burden of such efforts through federal grants. We are proud to endorse the HOPE Act and are grateful to Rep. Joyce and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez for re-introducing this bill. We look forward to continuing to work with their offices to get it passed.⁣


The Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act—a comprehensive bill that prioritizes legalization as well as justice reform and social equity—was refiled for a third time. If passed, it would deschedule cannabis by removing it from the Controlled Substances Act, create a process for expungements for non-violent federal cannabis convictions, and ensure that no individual would be denied federal benefits based solely on the use or possession of cannabis or past juvenile conviction for a cannabis offense.


The Cannabis Users’ Restoration of Eligibility (CURE) Act would prevent the denial of federal employment or security clearances based on a candidate’s past cannabis use. ⁣While it is vital these barriers to federal employment be removed, Congress should be going further by guaranteeing that ALL criminal record convictions are cleared instead of merely ignored. This would ensure no one suffers from the collateral consequences of a cannabis conviction.


⁣STATES Reform Act 2.0 was reintroduced would end federal cannabis prohibition, at the same time that it sought to incorporate certain equity provisions such as expungements for people with non-violent cannabis convictions and imposing an excise tax, revenue from which would have supported community reinvestment, law enforcement and Small Business Administration (SBA) activities.


Politicians on both sides of the aisle are open to attaching other pieces of legislation like the SAFER banking bill expungement provisions from the HOPE Act, which would assist states in automatically clearing low-level cannabis records. This has yet to materialize into a passed bill. LPP is working to ensure any cannabis legislation that is passed includes language that addresses the need for criminal justice reform.

DEA Moves to Officially Reschedule Cannabis

By Sarah Gersten • 30 Apr, 2024
Rescheduling is not legalization, and the existing penalties for cannabis remain unchanged. In October of 2022, President Biden made a series of historic cannabis-related executive actions , including initiating a review by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Justice on how cannabis is scheduled under federal law. In August 2023, HHS recommended rescheduling cannabis from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug and referred it to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for final approval. Today, the DEA announced its decision to approve the HHS recommendation to reschedule cannabis to Schedule III. The proposal now goes to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to review the rule. If approved by OMB, the proposed rescheduling would go to public comment before being finalized. This historic announcement is the culmination of years of advocacy by Last Prisoner Project (LPP) and other advocacy groups to push the federal government to better reflect the public’s view on cannabis. While the move is undoubtedly a step forward for the movement, it does not meet LPP’s goal to fully remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and its associated criminal penalties. So then, what exactly does this schedule change mean for cannabis justice reform? While the action could result in some favorable tax and banking reform for the cannabis industry and more dedicated research for cannabis patients, there are no changes in how the criminal legal system punishes cannabis users. Rescheduling is a peripheral change that signals the reevaluation of cannabis, but not the release of cannabis prisoners or relief for those who continue to be burdened by the lasting consequences of the carceral system. In short, this announcement represents progress but not justice. Despite not achieving full legalization, we must use this historic moment to push the fight for cannabis justice forward by broadening the scope of Biden’s cannabis clemency action, working with Congress and certain administrative agencies to both provide retroactive relief and to reduce prospective cannabis criminal enforcement, and incentivizing states to provide broad retroactive relief, particularly in states that have adopted a fully legal cannabis market. Learn more about ways cannabis justice advocates can leverage this change to advance reforms in our recent memo . LPP is committed to continuing the fight for cannabis justice until everyone is fully free from the harms of the War on Drugs. This means advocating for cannabis to be fully descheduled. To ensure we keep the pressure on descheduling, retroactive relief, and full legalization, Last Prisoner Project helped organize the largest bipartisan group of cannabis advocates in Washington D.C. on April 18th, 2024 for our 420 Unity Day of Action to urge Congress and the President to take further action. Last Prisoner Project believes that complete descheduling is a necessary step towards correcting past injustices and creating a fair and equitable criminal legal system. We will continue to leverage the momentum achieved from our advocacy to ensure that individuals burdened with past cannabis convictions have their records expunged and all cannabis prisoners are released, regardless of the federal scheduling decision.

President Biden Grants Clemency to 16 Non-Violent Drug Offenders, But No Cannabis Offenses Included

By Stephen Post • 27 Apr, 2024
President Joe Biden made a statement Wednesday announcing a decision to pardon 11 people convicted of non-violent drug charges and commuted the sentences of five others. "America is a nation founded on the promise of second chances," he said . "We also recommit to building a criminal justice system that lives up to those ideals and ensures that everyone receives equal justice under law." Despite this positive use of his clemency powers, President Biden again failed to include any people still in prison at the federal level for cannabis offenses which is estimated to be at least 3,000 individuals. Even though he has provided record relief to almost 13,000 people with his expanded cannabis possession pardons, the President has failed to release a single person in prison for cannabis. Last Prisoner Project Executive Director, Sarah Gersten said, "While we are encouraged to see the President use his clemency power to commute the sentences of those incarcerated for drug offenses, we are hopeful that the administration will fulfill their promises both to use the clemency power more robustly as well as to commute the sentences of those still incarcerated for cannabis." "The Administration has made it clear that cannabis reform is a priority and one that will energize their electorate. To truly make an impact that will sway voters come November the president needs to take action to release the estimated 3,000 individuals still incarcerated for cannabis federally." We hope that President Biden recognizes that releasing people with cannabis offenses doesn't require legalization. They demand executive action. If he is looking for the next batch of candidates for clemency, we have already sent him a list of deserving individuals whose petitions are sitting with the Office of the Pardon Attorney. He simply needs to act on them. We recently rallied advocates at the White House on our 420 Unity Day of Action to demand their freedom and encourage the public to help tell Congress and the President to take further action.

Donte West Joins Jason Flom on Wrongful Conviction Podcast to Discuss His Unjust Cannabis Sentence

By Stephen Post • 26 Apr, 2024
Listen on: iHeartRadio | Pandora | Spotify | RSS On March 8, 2016, Officer Nicholas Blake became suspicious of two vehicles traveling together on Interstate 70 toward Manhattan, KS due to their appearance and registration inconsistencies. He suspected they were involved in drug trafficking, with one acting as a decoy. Following a series of stops and surveillances by multiple law enforcement officers, a considerable amount of marijuana and methamphetamine was found in one of the vehicles leading to the arrest of Donte Westmoreland and others. Westmoreland was convicted based largely on the testimony of an informant, Jacob Gadwood, who claimed to have bought marijuana from Donte, but the informant's credibility was later questioned, and a prosecutorial deal ensuring Gadwood would not be charged with a crime was never disclosed. Donte Westmoreland is a decriminalization and anti-incarceration advocate whose experience with the criminal justice system changed his life forever. With a no criminal record score, and nothing illegal in his possession, Donte was arrested and convicted on charges that were later overturned. He spent three years imprisoned, where with the support of the facility's Warden and staff, he worked to fight his charges and also spoke to area teens about his experience with law enforcement and the courts. He was released on October 15, 2020 and is re-establishing his life in northern California where he works with the Last Prisoner Project to help free anyone incarcerated on cannabis related charges. Learn more about Donte in recent stories by Cannabis & Tech , Missouri Independent , and ABC . To learn more and get involved, visit: https://www.lastprisonerproject.org/ https://fromtheearth.com/missouri/independence-menu/?dtche%5Bpath%5D=brands%2Fwest-by-illicit We started the Wrongful Conviction podcast to provide a voice to innocent people in prison. We want to hear your voices, too. So call us at 833-207-4666 and leave us a message. Tell us how these powerful, often tragic and sometimes triumphant, stories make you feel. Shocked? Inspired? Motivated? We want to know! We may even include your story in a future episode. And hey, the more of you that join in, the more power our collective voices will have. So tell a friend to listen and to call us too at 833-207-4666. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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