Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said today that his office will dismiss nearly 60,000 cannabis convictions.
In a news release, Gascón’s office said the move was part of “ongoing efforts to reverse the injustices of drug laws.”
“Dismissing these convictions means the possibility of a better future to thousands of disenfranchised people who are receiving this long-needed relief,” Gascón said in the release. “It clears the path for them to find jobs, housing and other services that previously were denied to them because of unjust cannabis laws.”
The most recent dismissals bring the total cannabis cases dismissed in Los Angeles County to nearly 125,000, according to the release.
Gascón co-authored Proposition 64, which made cannabis legal in California in 2016.
“This is the unfinished work of Proposition 64,” said Lynne Lyman, former director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “We created the opportunity for old cannabis convictions to be cleared, but it was up to local district attorneys to actually make it happen. Proposition 64 was always about more than legal weed, it was an intentional effort to repair the past harms of the war on drugs and cannabis prohibition, which disproportionately targeted people of color.”
The move to legalize marijuana recently made headlines in the business world as Amazon announced it was lobbying Congress to federally legalize cannabis.
Citing how marijuana laws disproportionately affect people of color, the company said in June that it would no longer screen for marijuana use when hiring for jobs that are not regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation.