“I’m very pleased that the bill I’m signing gives us a real chance to right a lot of historical wrongs,” Moore said in an interview, “which is to say that if we want to have inclusive economic growth, we have to start removing these barriers that continue to fall disproportionately on communities of color.”
Moore called the scope of the pardons the “most sweeping and aggressive” executive action by officials across the country who have sought to address criminal justice inequities that have come with the widespread legalization of marijuana. Nine other states and several cities have pardoned hundreds of thousands of people with past marijuana-related convictions in recent years, according to the National Organization for Marijuana Law Reform. The legalized marijuana market brings in billions of dollars in revenue for state governments each year, and polls show public opinion on the drug is also changing, with more people embracing cannabis use and rejecting the racism exacerbated by the drug war.
The pardon was timed to coincide with Juneteenth, a day that marks the symbolic end of slavery in the U.S. The pardon comes from a rising star in the Democratic Party and the only Black governor of a U.S. state who rose to power on a platform of “leaving no one behind.”
Derek Riggins, 57, will be among those to receive pardon on Monday, more than 16 years after the last day he served his sentence for marijuana possession and trafficking in the late 1990s. Despite working hard to build a new life after serving his sentence, Riggins said he still faces lost job opportunities and potential earnings.
“You can’t hold people responsible for marijuana possession when there are dispensaries on every corner of town,” he said.
Nationwide, Black people are arrested for marijuana possession at more than three times the rate of white people, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). President Biden has issued a mass pardon for federal marijuana convictions in 2022 (suspending the sentences of about 6,500 people) and called on governors in states where the majority of marijuana prosecutions occur to do the same.
Maryland’s amnesty measure parallels that of Massachusetts, where the governor and executive council jointly issued a blanket pardon in March that is expected to affect hundreds of thousands of people.
But Moore’s pardon is likely to have a unique impact on communities of color in a state that has the worst record in the nation for disproportionately incarcerating black people for all crimes: More than 70% of the state’s male incarcerated population is black, more than double their share of the community as a whole, according to state data.
Maryland, the most diverse state on the East Coast, has a dramatically higher concentration of black people than other states that offer broad marijuana amnesty: 33 percent of Maryland’s population is black, followed by Illinois at 15 percent.
Maryland is the only state in the Washington, D.C., area that has fully legalized marijuana sales, but Washington, D.C. and Virginia have decriminalized marijuana possession and a gray market for the drug exists. According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Virginia and Washington, D.C. have not issued large-scale pardons for marijuana-related convictions, but Biden’s pardons affected Washington, D.C., because they applied to thousands of people arrested on federal land.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown, a Democrat, said the pardon was “certainly long overdue for our nation” and a “racial justice issue.”
“The amnesty applies to anyone with a misdemeanor conviction for possession of marijuana or related paraphernalia, and it will, without question, without any reservations, disproportionately and in a positive way, impact Black and brown Marylanders,” he said in an interview. “They use marijuana at rates no different than any other category of people, yet they are arrested and convicted at higher rates for marijuana possession and use.”
Reducing the state’s disparities in mass incarceration is a primary goal for Moore, Brown and Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue, all of whom are the first Black people to hold public office in the state. Brown and Dartigue formed a prosecutor-defense partnership to study “the entire criminal continuum,” from law enforcement stops to reentry, seeking to identify and ultimately reform all the junctures where discretion or bias can affect how justice is administered.
Maryland officials said the pardon, which applies to the dead, would not free anyone from incarceration because they were not incarcerated. Misdemeanor marijuana charges carry shorter sentences, and prosecutions of misdemeanor possession charges have been suspended because possession of small amounts of marijuana is legal throughout the state.
Moore’s pardon suit It will automatically waive all misdemeanor marijuana possession charges found by Maryland courts in the state’s electronic court records system, as well as all misdemeanor paraphernalia charges related to marijuana use or possession. Maryland is the only state that waives such paraphernalia charges, state officials said.
Electronic records in some Maryland jurisdictions date back to the 1980s, and in others to the 1990s or later, meaning people with older marijuana-related convictions stored in paper records can also apply for pardons.
Demographic data on those pardoned was limited as of Monday.
But the Moore administration noted that nearly a quarter of the pardoned convictions occurred in Baltimore, a city with a history of unconstitutional excessive policing of its black community despite containing less than 10 percent of the state’s population. In the Washington, D.C., suburbs, roughly 12 percent of the pardoned convictions occurred in Prince George’s County and 6 percent in Montgomery County.
A 2013 ACLU report found that state marijuana arrests rose nationwide during the first decade of this century, with Maryland and Washington, D.C., ranking in the top five for arrest rates in the country.
As recently as 2020, Maryland saw more than 10,000 marijuana-related arrests per year, nearly a decade after possession of small amounts was decriminalized and three years after the drug was legalized for medical use, according to a state analysis.
Maryland is preparing to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2022, joining nearly 20 other states. White Marylanders use marijuana more than Black residents, but Black residents are more than twice as likely to be charged with possession, according to a report by a state analyst. By law, 35% of tax revenues from legal marijuana sales must go back to areas that are disproportionately policed compared to the rest of the state.
“At the heart of the work we’ve done is righting the injustices of the War on Drugs,” said Rep. Janelle K. Wilkins (D-Montgomery), chair of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus. Noting that Maryland has recently elevated Black people to key positions, including speaker of the House, she said, “We’re at a time in Maryland where we’re really focused on equity.”
Beneficiaries of the mass amnesty will have their charges appear on state court records within two weeks and be removed from criminal background check databases within 10 months, although convictions will remain on public court records unless someone applies for an expungement.
Other states have abandoned pardons and instead simply removed marijuana-related convictions from public view: California, for example, has sealed, dismissed or expunged more than 200,000 convictions since the law was passed in 2018.
The nationwide effort to reduce the impact of marijuana convictions follows recent loosening of federal regulations that could pave the way for broader access to the drug across the United States.
The Biden administration began addressing the issue in 2022, with the president directing health officials to consider whether existing science supports reclassifying marijuana out of the most heavily regulated Schedule I controlled substance list, which also includes heroin, LSD and ecstasy.
Health officials have recommended that marijuana be reclassified as a Schedule III drug, which would put it in the same category as substances such as codeine-containing Tylenol, ketamine, and anabolic steroids. In April, the Drug Enforcement Administration agreed with federal health officials, and Attorney General Merrick Garland formally recommended marijuana be reclassified.
While the reclassification would not make cannabis federally legal, it could pave the way for further research into the drug and broaden access to medical marijuana.
For the first time this year, daily marijuana use surpassed alcohol, with 17.7 million people reporting using marijuana daily or nearly daily.
As he receives the pardon, Riggins said it’s not immediately clear how much of a change it will make to his life, but he applauds Moore’s pardon for marijuana offenses that cannot be prosecuted under current Maryland law.
Shortly after leaving prison in 2008, Riggins was assisted by the Urban Family Center and secured employment, where he still works, with an HVAC construction company in Baltimore. Riggins said his employers trust him as a foreman to lead teams on multimillion-dollar projects, but his marijuana conviction prevents him from working on some of the federal government’s most expensive contracts. It is unclear whether the related charge of making false statements still prevents him from working on those projects, despite his pardon.
“People can change,” he said. “People can pay their debt to society and get a new start.”
Ovetta Wiggins contributed to this report.
