“You cannot talk about the benefits of legalization if you’re not willing to deal with the consequences of criminalization,” Moore said. “For people who are walking around with misdemeanor cannabis convictions, the weight of that action for them — in some cases, which are decades old — it still continues to hinder them: their ability to get a job, their ability to go to school, their ability to start a business, their ability to reintegrate with their family members.”
"Gov. Wes Moore issued more than 175,000 pardons for misdemeanor cannabis possession and use convictions Monday morning — one of the largest state-issued pardons in U.S. history.
“We’ll be clear: This is just a step — this is not a conclusion,” Moore, a Democrat in his first term, said in an interview Monday morning. “You have to be able to right these wrongs in order for the right steps to be made.”
The pardons apply to over 150,000 misdemeanor convictions for cannabis possession and more than 18,000 misdemeanor convictions for use or possession with intent to use drug paraphernalia. At an Annapolis news conference Monday morning, Moore called this “the largest such action in our nation’s history.”
Marylanders voted by an overwhelming margin to approve recreational use cannabis for adults during the 2022 general election. Cannabis officially became legalized in the state July 1, 2023."
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