County officials in Missouri have expunged over 70,000 marijuana-related convictions since December.
This includes more than 10,000 felony charges, according to an update provided by NORML Board of Directors Member Dan Viets, who co-authored the 2022 initiative that legalized marijuana throughout the state.
Provisions in the law, which took effect on December 8, 2022, required officials to expunge all eligible marijuana-related misdemeanor convictions by June 8, 2023. Viets said that some counties had failed to make a “good faith effort” to meet the June deadline, indicating that advocates may seek an order from the Missouri Supreme Court to compel certain counties to comply with the mandate.
Despite this delay by some counties, over 70,000 people have had marijuana charges effectively removed from their records, removing barriers for housing, employment and more.
This month, officials in Minnesota are beginning the process of reviewing and expunging an estimated 66,000 low-level cannabis convictions. According to publicly available data compiled by NORML, state and local officials have issued over 100,000 pardons and more than 1.7 million marijuana-related expungements since 2018.
According to the Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services, licensed marijuana stores in Missouri sold $95.2 million worth of recreational marijuana in June. This is in addition to $26 million in medical marijuana sales, bringing the total for the month of June to $121.2 million.
